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posted by janrinok on Monday November 21 2016, @04:21AM   Printer-friendly
from the tested-on-mice-and-kids dept.

NPR reports on different interpretations of a recent study involving young mice and prolonged audiovisual stimulation:

The debate centered on a study of young mice exposed to six hours daily of a sound and light show reminiscent of a video game. The mice showed "dramatic changes everywhere in the brain," said Jan-Marino Ramirez, director of the Center for Integrative Brain Research at Seattle Children's Hospital.

"Many of those changes suggest that you have a brain that is wired up at a much more baseline excited level," Ramirez reported. "You need much more sensory stimulation to get [the brain's] attention."

So is that a problem?

On the plus side, it meant that these mice were able to stay calm in an environment that would have stressed out a typical mouse, Ramirez explained. But it also meant they acted like they had an attention deficit disorder, showed signs of learning problems, and were prone to risky behavior.

Overall, the results add to the evidence that parents should be very cautious about screen time for young children, Ramirez said. "I would minimize it."

A more optimistic interpretation came from Leah Krubitzer, an evolutionary neurobiologist at the University of California, Davis. "The benefits may outweigh the negative sides to this," Krubitzer said, adding that a less sensitive brain might thrive in a world where over-stimulation is a common problem.


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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @05:04AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @05:04AM (#430353)

    I spent my childhood playing video games which taught me that I don't need money because the world should be littered with healthpacks and powerups. All I have to do is camp on an item spawn and eventually everything I want will just appear. Now that I've grown up, I see there are a whole bunch of players in the game who have cheated their way to scores in the billions and nobody should have scores that high. We need to rewrite the rules of the mod to put an upper limit on how many points players can accumulate so when their scores get too high, the game starts spawning healthpacks and powerups faster.

    Starting Score:    0  points
    Moderation   +5  
       Insightful=1, Funny=4, Total=5
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  

    Total Score:   5  
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @05:22AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @05:22AM (#430361)

    I've been metapoed:

    I can't tell whether to file this under Poe's Law, or Ha Ha, Only Serious. So I'm modding it +1 Funny.

  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Geotti on Monday November 21 2016, @06:53AM

    by Geotti (1146) on Monday November 21 2016, @06:53AM (#430375) Journal

    Sounds like you never found the console button and typed "help" in there to get a list of commands.

  • (Score: 2) by Subsentient on Monday November 21 2016, @07:17AM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Monday November 21 2016, @07:17AM (#430386) Homepage Journal

    I'd actually be in favor of that.
    Don't mind me, just your everyday hermit screen-bathed socialist.
    We're coming for your baseball and apple pies, America.

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Monday November 21 2016, @07:53AM

    by anubi (2828) on Monday November 21 2016, @07:53AM (#430394) Journal

    A musical group, "21 Pilots", has a song out that seems to sum this whole thing up quite well. [youtube.com]

    I normally cannot stand rap music, but this one was an exception. The words ring so true...

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @08:34AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2016, @08:34AM (#430401)

      Is it the song in which the man child rides a man sized tricycle to his friend's house and sings about his mother? Yes. Yes it is.

      I already got into a flame war about the same song on this shit site, because "rap music" is too fucking obscure for you ancient scumfucking assmunchers. So you're more than welcome to go fuck yourself, motherfucker.

      motor tricycles are for manchildren [soylentnews.org] flame thread

      My name is not Blurryface, and I do not fucking care what you think.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by anubi on Monday November 21 2016, @09:20AM

        by anubi (2828) on Monday November 21 2016, @09:20AM (#430410) Journal

        Thanks for the reply.... I had not seen that post.

        I heard the song while eating at DelTaco. I remembered the words about a kid dreaming about outer space, flying a rocket, then "wake up - you gotta make money" or something like that.

        Reminded me of myself. I have always been a dreamer. Kid of the 60's. Loved science and making things. Same things the song talked about. It may be fun to design all sorts of stuff, but in the modern corporate world, all this STEM stuff may be fun for me, but it may be doing stuff like working at WalMart that pays the bills.

        I do my design stuff just for the fun of it. I am heavily addicted to it - its the only thing in life I get a kick out of doing, or get any feeling of accomplishment for doing, but I am too much of a perfectionist at it and it won't pay the bills.

        So I googled the phrases I remembered from the song, because they rang so true for me, and Google returned me link to the song.

        So far, that is the only piece of rap music that made an impact on me - I guess because the artists nailed my own take on my life so precisely.

        --
        "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @04:49AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 22 2016, @04:49AM (#431062)

    You wrote this playfully, but the attitude of "if I wait long enough, the game will tell me where to go, my exp and gold will go up if I just spend time at it (or even if I just wait a bit maybe)" is frightening and real.