Study Reports Videogames and TV Make Kids Unbalanced

[Kuchinawa212]

Ha I'd argue him all over the internet
but if I saw him in real life...*wimpers*

 

[Lightslei]

I like to know where she pulled this one hour stuff from exactly how did she arrive at this "scientific" conclusion?

I mean the study was based on 10 and 11 year old kids. at that age your not sending them to bed at 8 oclock at night. They are not going to be outside playing for 5 to 6 hours until it is bedtime including 2 to 4 hours of darkness, what are they supposed to do? 1 hour of tv or video game or computer is near laughable.

Nevermind that we have an abundance of reasonably healthy and happy adults that have spent way more than 2 hours a day watching tv, or playing video games, or surfing the web.

And what about kids that grow up watching sesame street or mister rodgers, or discovery channel or the history channel? How the hell are they going to qualify as unbalanced if they watching educational television.

This study paints a pretty broad brush that all tv is bad that all internet is bad that all gaming is bad. Yea kids should get out ride their bikes goto the park and play a few times a week and get off their asses and do something, and hell that goes for adults to. But what do you do in the winter? you got a whole season that is pretty much stay inside keep warm and watch some tv or play some games and try not to get frost bit or break your ass on some ice.

This whole study reeks of bullshit. And highly unrealistic bullshit at that.

^ This.

I've probably spent far more time in front of screens then I should have since I was I think 3 and I'm fine.

 

[Treblaine]

You can't trust these studies. There is always someone who claims something because of a study and then there is someone who claims the exact opposite. How am I supposed to know which one is the right one? Well, maybe there is no right one. But at least I know that I shouldn't rely too much on studies.

Neither is right if both parties are trying to twist the question and answer of each study to match what they want.

Bad science all around.

A new debate should begin by first making clear:

1: What is the question/query/thing-you-want-to-know.

2: What is the actual answer we are looking for?

Douglas Adams' books seems more and more appropriate all the time. Like the Answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything being "42" yet not being clear what the actual question was. This study is an example of how you can have an answer without a question.

 

[The Random One]

Could you vague that up for me?

 

[Glassesguy904]

Wow. I believe I wrote a 5-paragraph essay on how video games DON'T seriously affect kids. The media is just milking the whole "video game corruption" thing in order to make helicopter parents happy. The mess was created when children with previous mental problems played games. Most the time the issues are BLAMED on games instead of bad parenting. Most times all other causes are avoided when video games are a POSSIBLE reason for the child's behavior. Addiction would be the true cause to the problem but adults will never admit their own issues with raising a child.

 

[KenzS]

I will admit, the recent strain of terrible video games is giving me severe mental issues. I pray the rest of the fall lineup doesnt suck!

 

[DustyDrB]

Doubting that the researchers concluded that video games and TV "make" kids unbalanced. Because, you learn in day one of any research class and have the point re-emphasized over and over that correlation does not equal causation.

 

[badgersprite]

One measly hour?

Seriously? No. That's not a reasonable amount of time for anything. Thats like, what, one episode of inbetweeners on a monday?

Or better yet, the time I spend trying to pick a channel

Watching the news even, or a documentary or political debate. Yeah, that psychologically "unbalances" you just because it is a screen.

What the hell is this study saying, what is the ACTUAL variable? The Screen itself or all electronic entertainment? Seditary entertainment? Visual stimulus?

What about kids who listen to music or radio, are they similarly affected. Could that function as a control group?

This study fails in the abstract as it doesn't make clear WHAT is causing WHAT result.

Never mind the fact that almost every child watches TV. Or 'screened media' if that's how they want to describe it. If I'm not mistaken, the majority of households in America have the TV on for more than two hours a day. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't the average child in Australia and America watch more than two hours of television?

So, thereby, according to this study, nearly every child in the Western world has engaged in an activity that causes psychological problems. We even get exposed to screened media in schools for educational purposes.

By that logic, practically nobody born after 1955 should be stable. We must all have underlying mental health problems. This study says so!

I think it's pretty obvious that exposure to TV (or videogames) isn't the issue at hand here, even if this study is trying to suggest otherwise. TV is so universal that it couldn't be accurately measured as the integral variable in an uncontrolled environment.

Now, I don't have the resources to conduct a study to make my opinion sound more scientific, but I'd think it's obvious that there are other more pressing problems to a child's psychological welfare than how many hours they spend watching TV. Let us name a few, shall we? Parenting. Bullying. Academic performance. Self-image issues. Health and physical conditions. Sleeping patterns. Even boredom. Study those, then we'll talk.

 

[PeePantz]

Did anyone else notice that the kid in the picture appears to have downs syndrome? Equating video games and children to being retarded is not very balanced in my opinion. Wonder what she's playing though.....

 

[Furious Styles]

You know what, this makes sense. It really does. I'm not saying it'll make us evil or violent or anything, but that much time spent in front of a screen away from other humans has to have an effect of some description.

Unbalanced is a strong word, but, I don't know, it can't be great for them/us.

Of course, cause and effect is an issue

 

[ProfessorLayton]

Don't worry, in a week there will be another study countering these results. It always happens.

 

[Rubashov]

Correlation does not equal causation. How does she know that the kids' "mentally unbalanced" nature isn't what's leading them to spend more time in front of the screen, rather than the other way around?

 

[SenseOfTumour]

How about a study that shows the effects of introducing local multiplayer games to kids, where 2 to 4 of them sit around the same screen and play together?

I'd be interested to see if that helps their social skills.

Oh I'm sorry, turns out that it makes them into serial killers.

TL;DR version

TOO MUCH anything is too much...that's what it means, mix it up a little!

if your kid spends an hour or two a night gaming (or reading, or watching TV or making model aircraft) that's fine, if it's 4-8 hours a day, you might want to start limiting it.

 

[ImprovizoR]

I turned out just fine. This effects only those kids that were crazy to begin with.

But I do believe that kids shouldn't play a lot of video games anyway. I had an amazing childhood and it didn't consist of only video games and technology. I enjoyed more simple things like toys and stuff like that.

 

[stabnex]

People were actualkly PAID to do that study? I got one for ya. What happens when you put mud in water? Nobodys been paid horrifically well to announce to the world the results of THAT!

 

[Eldarion]

The kids filled out a questionnaire

I'm sorry, but can you get accurate results from this? At all?

 

[spartan1077]

What kind of phsychological disorders like.... Oooh a butterfly

 

[The Bum]

Well you can plug this into anything you don't like it's so ambigous IE:Study shows prolonged exposeuer to cupcakes causes children to be unbalenced. See just swicth a few words and it applies to anything! Also children a almost universaly unrealible i know if i was that age and took the test i would have put all lies just to fuck up the study.

 

[Treblaine]

...

By that logic, practically nobody born after 1955 should be stable. We must all have underlying mental health problems. This study says so!
...

Yes, strange that. A profession discovers we all need their expertise even though we didn't know there was anything wrong in the first place. First time that's ever happened (sarc).

In fact psychologists will say most of the things most people do cause "psychological problems" but that's meaningless as it is not meaningfully quantified and qualified.

This study is not a problem in search of a cure, this is a cure in search of a problem. Career justifying work. Just a lot of alarming but unsubstantial comments and conclusions.

But this study is meaningless, the controls and variable are not carefully defined or monitored with unclear data collection and vague interpretation parameters. It is so loose you can make it say whatever you like and is certainly not replicable so you can't counter it.

 

[Negatempest]

I agree with the study. If we had not television or video based entertainment, we would fall more in line with how Americans were in the past. You know sitting in-front of the radio listening with the family. Saying "Golly" and "Geewiz Mister" instead of the cursing we have today. Of course you can't forget the good times of publicly demeaning the minorities without repercussions of any kind. Where forcing Christian, Catholic or Baptist views (Evangelicals) was the norm and highly appreciated. Yes, before television existed was definitely a golden time for human society.......