Well this was weird......

[The Frenchman 0]

Alright, I am watching tv and the news comes on. It's headline was about the effect of videogames on children. A gameclip of the first level of MoH:Fl. showed up. I thought "Great, I'll be banned from this game or be gunned downed by federal agents ." But before I went out the door to go to school it said that military games ARE GOOD for kids.

(BTW, it was american TV news )

[drewb99 0]

Canada.com's Report

Better start stocking schools with copies of UT2003

[red oct 2]

they have been blaming video games since the Columbine shooting. its a scape goat for parents to blame something other than their bad parenting.

[Major Gripe 0]

I read that in an english newspaper, apparently it improves kids awareness, reaction and general spatial awareness. I still think that playing team sports like football (american and proper ) will improve kids reactions and situational peception further and faster than some pixels (no matter how pretty!).

[red oct 2]

i was watching TechTV and they mentioned that video games can be used to help reduce pain. they talking how when you play games when in pain it will distract the mind and reducing pain. irronicly they got the best results from the most violent games like the GTA games.

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Games have improved my tactical knowhow immensely. In fact, I think I'm the only kid in my class who knows how to conduct a battalion-sized attack on a fixed position

[ralphwiggum 6]

this news was released yesterday.

basically, it doesn't mean games are good for many situations, but may be beneficial in visual perception aspect ONLY.

after playing games long enough, you better be able to distinguish images better or you get TKed ot killed. so your visual image processing gets more work out, so reacts better.

Just to remind folks again, the study is about visual perception and games only. so don't say playing games is good. my vision level went down thanx to years of PC usage.

The benefit/problem of FPS is that it does, to some extent, grow the tactical ability of the player. Whether that player goes on Columbine or go to Quantico decides its usefulness.

and Tex, that is called, 'just send the troops in'

[Jamesia 0]

Yeh,

Computer games do help your reactions...... but lets hope that they dont improve the kind of reactions that make you shoot your best friend.

I feel that if you are at a good age then computer games are good. However I didnt think my 3 year old cousin playing GTA3 and only wanting to kill policemen was very good.

[Renagade 0]

Well at least hes learning early

[The Frenchman 0]

@ May 30 2003,00:34)]I'm the only kid in my class who knows how to conduct a battalion-sized attack on a fixed position  

And I'm the only one in my school that knows about Mi 28's, spetz natz, Hinds and I have learned a few words in german from MoH.

[Supah 0]

@ May 29 2003,01:34)]Games have improved my tactical knowhow immensely. In fact, I think I'm the only kid in my class who knows how to conduct a battalion-sized attack on a fixed position  

Your a kid?! I am the only person at my company who plays OFP except for some manager but he sucks. He thinks Abba is cool band .... so i dont talk to him anymore We just play CS on fridays on the network ... i tried to get them in to OFP but allas Then again i could ORDER 8 men to play OFP :P "ALL, Play OFP or ill put you on first line helpdesk for a week" "ROGER!"

[Tex -USMC- 0]

@ May 29 2003,01:34)]Games have improved my tactical knowhow immensely. In fact, I think I'm the only kid in my class who knows how to conduct a battalion-sized attack on a fixed position  

Your a kid?!

why the hell is everyone so damned surprised when I say that? Just for the record, I'm a 17 year old American male. Maybe that should go in my sig too

[Supah 0]

@ May 29 2003,02:59)]

@ May 29 2003,01:34)]Games have improved my tactical knowhow immensely. In fact, I think I'm the only kid in my class who knows how to conduct a battalion-sized attack on a fixed position  

Your a kid?!

why the hell is everyone so damned surprised when I say that? Just for the record, I'm a 17 year old American male. Maybe that should go in my sig too  

Its just i was once told that the clan you belonged to only recruited ex USMC personel ... i think i put one and one together and made pi must have misunderstood it

[Tex -USMC- 0]

Its just i was once told that the clan you belonged to only recruited ex USMC personel ... i think i put one and one together and made pi must have misunderstood it

Hey, no problem. Here's our member page: http://www.usmc-warriors.com/OFP/members.asp and as you can see, although the great majority are USMC, we've got all sorts in there, including Canadian military and even one IDF member at one point. It just so happens that I'm one of two minors in the squad.

edit: link fixed

[Supah 0]

I stand corrected then

[deathguy 0]

ya I heard about that this morning, I had already heard something like that before long ago.

I like the end of the news on canada.com

Quote[/b] ]But even Nature sees the wry side of its own work. It adds in a brief news summary: "Don't tell the children."

well....to late!

[SFG 1]

Yeah I saw it on CNN this morning, the host says "Well.. GTA3 can't be good for kids, *looks at co-host* have you seen the violence in that game?"

[bn880 5]

(have not read entire thread yet)

I think peoples reflexes improve the most while playing fast paced games. (even OFP) This actually translates to real life situations.

For one instance I know my driving skills/reflexes got improved through playing things like CART Precision racing ,Viper Racing, and F1 200X etc. Especially when it comes to sticky situations (spin recovery, collision avoidance). It helped me stay completely calm in extrememly dangerous situations and I was able to take the best actions in all of them. Still after I would get out of the car my legs would be weak, but hey, that's just adrenaline wearing off. (you have really no time to think if you are driving on the edge, so it's really reflexes and instant decision making that's at play)

[sanctuary 19]

Oh , yes you can gain more attention to a specific situation and point on your vision

But , why did the study forgot to tell that too much watching monitor and TV will decrease vision quality with the time ?

Someone seems to not really do a complete study before reporting results .

[FSPilot 0]

Well, thanks to video games, I'd know what to do if a crazy Soviet general invaded my peaceful island.

[Epita 0]

I think games et all help improve reflexs etc. I dont get sucked into games as a violent thing, most people dont. Its just the few people who are allready on the edge that play games and go overboard that ruin it for the rest of us.

I allready know how to kill people, games just help me refine:D

[Guest]

PC games can also improve your weight!

[The Frenchman 0]

Yeah, pressing reload and fire over and over on a keyboard a can really burn that fat.

[ralphwiggum 6]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/TECH/ptech/07/06/college.gamers.ap/index.html

Quote[/b] ]Surprising findings about video game players

Study finds players are social multitaskers

CHICAGO, Illinois (AP) -- Roughly two-thirds of college students play video games, but the image of a nerdy guy who spends all day in a dimly lit room blowing up computer-generated bad guys is off base, according to a new study.

College gamers are not necessarily male -- or anti-social hermits. And while about a third of those surveyed admitted playing computer games during class, the games generally don't conflict with their studies, says the researcher who conducted the survey for the Pew Internet & American Life Project.

"It's not taking the place of studying; nor is it taking away from other activities," says researcher Steve Jones, chairman of communications department at the University of Illinois at Chicago. "What they seem to have done is incorporated gaming into a very multitask-oriented lifestyle."

In addition to the survey data, Jones drew his conclusion from observations he and fellow researchers made while watching students in college computer labs -- many of them writing papers, then taking short breaks to play computer games and send online messages to friends.

Often, he says, groups of students stop to watch the game.

"What we found is that it's a very social activity," Jones says.

The survey, released Sunday, was compiled from questionnaires completed last year by 1,162 college students on 27 campuses nationwide. Its results have a margin of error of 3 percentage points.

Among other things, surveyors found that 65 percent of those who responded were regular or occasional game players. Most said they played in their rooms or parents' homes.

Nearly half said gaming keeps them from studying "some" or "a lot" -- though their study habits matched closely with those reported by college students in general, Jones said.

"There's this stereotype of game slackers wasting time, goofing off, that really isn't valid," says Marcia Grabowecky, a Northwestern University psychologist who has studied visual perception in humans, including those who play computer and video games.

Playing games is so common for this age group, it's almost second nature, Jones says. "It's common maybe in a way Monopoly was years ago," he says.

Nearly 70 percent of those questioned said they were in elementary school when they first played video games. By junior high and high school, about half said they had tried computer games -- software-driven games from cards to shoot-'em-up adventures such as Doom -- and 43 percent said they had tried online games over the Internet.

David McNulty, a 19-year-old computer science major at the University of Maine, started playing video games, such as Nintendo's wildly popular Mario Brothers, at age 5. He now hosts game-playing parties and joins online games with people who live across the world.

McNulty says he stopped playing during his first semester because he was worried it would hurt his grades, but he found that his social life suffered.

Gamers not just male loners

He started playing again and says it hasn't affected his studies.

"It takes less time to play a few games than to go downtown or see a movie with your friends. It's easier to meet them online and shoot at them," McNulty says, chuckling.

The survey also found that, while gaming has a reputation as a male-dominated pastime, women are avid game players, too.

Of those surveyed, 60 percent of women said they played online and computer software-based games, compared with 40 percent of men. About the same number of men and women said they played video games on PlayStation, Xbox and other systems.

That news pleased Sarah Fenton, who is finishing up a degree in game art and design at the Art Institute of Phoenix. She hopes to become a character designer for a video game company and is convinced that even more women would play video games if there were more characters geared toward them.

"I hope that we can bring a little equality to what's out there," she says.

[hellfish6 7]

Ralph's post:

Well I'm not suprised, but I'm happy to hear that gaming is finally NOT being called such a horrible thing. I mean, I played Xbox and PS with men and women in college all the time. Drunk or sober, at noon or at 4am - video games were just a fun group activity. Especially for a group of poor twenty-somethings in a college town surrounded by corn.

@ May 29 2003,17:34)]Games have improved my tactical knowhow immensely. In fact, I think I'm the only kid in my class who knows how to conduct a battalion-sized attack on a fixed position  

Pfff - I was reading Clausewitz and von Moltke (the Elder) when I was ten. I could conduct CORPS sized attacks.