It seems like many of you did not read the article. The researcher specifically says he does not think gaming causes the attention problems. He says there is a correlation and that there is a possibility that gaming may exacerbate existing attention problems. As someone else pointed out it's ironic that a bunch of gamers can't be bothered to actually read a summary, much less click on the article in question.
Many of your arguments seem to hinge on the idea that elementary school kids already lack strong attention spans. Research of this type is not arguing that kids don't have short attention spans. The research asks if the kids have abnormal attention problems. The argument that people like things that stimulate them and in which they are interested doesn't hold water. One of the most important skills in life is the ability to delay gratification. Few people LOVE unraveling an organic chemistry problem or solving differential equations. Marcel Proust and Spinosa and Balzac are not easy reads. Yet there is merit those things, merit that does not come with a glowing halo to signify a new level or even so much as a high score. If you are trained from a young age to expect instant punishment and reward, and you do this training while your neurons and axons are still developing, is it preposterous to suggest that training would shape your motivational strategies for the rest of your life? Why? If you practice anything you reinforce a habit in your brain and certain neurological functions become "muscle memory." This is true of music, sports, art, cooking, math, war and a zillion other things. If you think about music all day, you hear songs differently. If you cook all the time you look at food differently. If you spend all day every day in a combat zone you look at life differently and react differently to certain types of stimulation. None of these things are controversial statements, yet for some reason gamers seem to think constantly washing the human pleasure centers in hyper-stimulation and an unrealistic punishment/reward cycle will have no consequences for how they view other things, and that if there are consequences they are not new and don't matter.
I'm an avid gamer and have been all my life. In some of my earliest memories I'm staring wide-eyed at a Centipede or Gauntlet cabinet. I don't want to blame any problems in focus or attention on gaming, but I've definitely noticed a difference between the consciousness of my friends who play tons of video games and my friends who don't. My friends who are doctors and lawyers and who own businesses and travel all over the world tend not to be gamers. I can count one hand my friends who are avid gamers and have exceptional luck/skill with the opposite sex. This is all anecdotal evidence, but after thirty years of gaming I've gathered a LOT of anecdotal evidence. I understand the urge to protect your ego, but if you don't think gaming alters your consciousness I submit that you are kidding yourself.
