Under-7s 'should be banned from playing computer games or risk damaging their brains'

sehnsucht - 715 days 23 hours ago

I guess this COULD be right; but, on the other hand, maybe their brains can just process things faster than the people observing...

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Mr Tretton - 715 days 17 hours ago

It could be true. Too much hyper stimulation on a young child's brain could make them very uninterested in learning from a book. They really don't need to play video games before 7 anyway. They have the rest of their lives to do that.

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gamesR4fun - 715 days 17 hours ago

games are great learning tools.

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ThatArtGuy - 715 days 17 hours ago

First, give them Brain Academy or learning software. Secondly, it's UP TO THE PARENTS to nurture/enforce a desire to learn.

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NeonSkull - 715 days 17 hours ago

i aint even going to real this article, its from the dailymail.co.uk.
I live in the uk and you just dont listen to that piece of **** paper, they hate every thing about video games, and love trying to be a moral spokeman for the people that like to think they know what is best for over people.

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MK_Red - 715 days 16 hours ago

I don't know. I was playing games before six on Atari and ended up the top student at school.
Sure the games were much simpler back then but the thing is that the games that bring lots of action and stuff that "could" be harmfull to those minors are all M and T rated FPS games and that rating means children can't play them until the age of 13-17 not 7. And seriously, there are more than few over simplified children's games.

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SaiyanFury - 715 days 16 hours ago

I've been playing games since I was 6 in the 80s and it never impacted me in a negative way. These studies always have a negative connotation.

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Kumate - 715 days 13 hours ago

My son plays Dungeon and dragons online ..we played it for awhile and he was just interested in what we played so on our laptop we created a third account and let him go at it. My son is 2 and a half years old...and he can take a character from level 1-4 all by himself in that game. He just doesnt run up and kill things and leave..in that game you can't get experience that way. He has memorized about 30 quest in that game. Its crazy to watch..he goes in and turns valves and unlocks doors and swims and climbs stairs and knows exactly what to do. He learned it from trail and error. Only after you complete the mission objectives do you get experience. If you are just putting a controller/keyboard at your kids fingers then just using it to ignore your kids then yeah its a horrible tool..but if you try to teach your kid whats going on..they learn alot. My son points at keys on the keyboard and talks outloud saying...A,..D...E..and most of the time hes wrong..but he is slowing learning the alphabet just becuase we point with him and tell him what the keys are.

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Silver360 - 715 days 12 hours ago

or those mobiles in their cribs. Don't want anything fast moving around them

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djroberts - 715 days 11 hours ago

This quote is so off: "If you watch kids on a computer, most of them are just hitting keys or moving the mouse as fast as they can. It reminds me of rats running in a maze."

When my 4 year old plays Dora or some other cartoon flash based game on the computer he concentrates intensly. Here is what I've noticed from his video game play:
1. Improved motor skills, far beyond most of his friends.
2. Improved focus on things that interest him, this includes drawing, playing games, writing his name, etc...
3. Improved imagination, we ensure that he spend time with toys as well because that relies more on imagination and his is excellent.

We limit his gaming but do sometimes have extended sessions where he'll watch me play a game. I've noticed that he doesn't want to game over 1 hour usually. At this point he drops it and moves on to toys, play-do or drawing.

Also, we read him a book often before he's goes to bed. If you want your children interesting in books, read to them. Taking away video games has little effect in my opinion.

The real problem is diet. Parents feed their kids to much crap. Caffiene, high fructose corn syrup, sugar, etc... So if your 6 year old is doped out on Coke, spending his weekends in doors playing World of Warcraft then yes, you're going to have issues.

One last note, I do believe some games are intensly addicting like WoW. I would be far more careful with these.

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liquidsnake - 715 days 11 hours ago

I started playing games at the age of two, and Im just fine.

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Froogles - 715 days 1 hour ago

Seriously,it's the Daily Mail. Like The Sun and the rest of 'em,you DO NOT read this newspaper unless you wanna be spoonfed bullshit. It's one of the most untrustworthy papers out there,you don't believe **** all in it if you want to be taken seriously again.

Seriously,now i've got that rant over with,i'll get on with my experience of video games when I was younger. I started when I was 2,playing Mario,Yoshi's Island and lots and lots of other SNES,Megadrive (Genesis to you Yanks),NES,3DO and a multitude of other consoles (Pretty much everyone of them,actually). I spent hell of alot of time on games when I was younger,and I tell you now it never ever affected me adversely.

And the reason I was the best reader in my school at just 7 years old is purely due to playing RPG's like Final Fantasy and Chrono Trigger on the SNES and Playstation. It never adversely affected me; I was a above average child getting 5/5/5 in Year 6 sats. I tell you now that that report is bullshit and anyone with any common sense shouldn't believe it really.

Of course,Video games can have bad effects,just like anything can really. But if the kid is young (12-),it is primarily the parents' fault and should not be blamed on video games,especially when the child was most likely playing games under the age limit.

Just my 2 pence.

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