Baroness Greenfield: Video Games Lead to 'Kiddie Dementia'

The Sun picks up the game-selling scientist's outlandish claims

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Baroness Greenfield: Video Games Lead to 'Kiddie Dementia'
Former director of the Royal Institution of Great Britain, Baroness Greenfield who was made redundant from that post, has told someone (maybe The Daily Telegraph or maybe The Sun, we can't know for certain given the state of mainstream media) that computer games can lead to dementia in children or 'alter children's brains'.

Apparently, however, not if you buy the kinds of games that she herself has promoted in the past but that neither Which Magazine and science stalwart Ben Goldacre have much faith in.

Before we hit the outraged quotes, let's give a wee bit of context, according to The Guardian the Baroness has a genuine interest in things such as dementia having "launched three academic start-up companies, named Synaptica, BrainBoost and Neurodiagnostics, all of which are concerned with aspects of Alzheimer's disease". Three start-up companies is very impressive.

She also helped to launch a computer game, Mindfit, at the House of Lords in 2007. The Telegraph reported back then that, "The MindFit game, which retails at £89.99, is licensed by MindWeavers, an Oxford University spin-out company, through collaboration with the makers CogniFit, based in Israel."

A quick skip to the Mindweavers website in the UK and elsewhere today indicates that this foray into video games was possibly not as successful as might have been hoped.

According to The Telegraph the Baroness states, "If you play computer games to the exclusion of other things this will create a new environment that will have new effects ... every hour you spend in front of a screen is an hour not spent climbing a tree or giving someone a hug."

This, of course, echoes the line taken by The Daily Mail in 2007(!) that, ""PlayStation generation that will never climb a tree" .

Taking her argument to its logical conclusion, of course, if you study for a Phd in Neuroscience "to the exclusion of other things" that will probably also "create a new environment that will have new effects" and you won't be climbing trees either.

On the question of dementia she states, "Screen technologies cause high arousal, which in turn activates the brain system’s underlying addiction and reward, resulting in the attraction of yet more screen-based activity..." said the brain-training video game supporting baroness.

Apparently, however, she told The Sun, that all this screen-based activity, "can be temporarily disabled by activities with a strong sensory content — 'blowing the mind'.

"Or they can be inactivated permanently by degeneration — ie. dementia."

Bear in mind, also, that this is the same Baroness Greenfield who, in 2009 told The Daily Mail that, "Social websites harm children's brains: Chilling warning to parents from top neuroscientist."

So, basically, screen-time, to the exclusion of everything else, could possibly lead to brain activity of a different kind to screen-time in tandem with other activities. We reckon that air traffic controllers and stock brokers, TV execs and many others should be in fear of this "chilling warning".

We're going to leave Ben Goldacre with the last work on the good Baroness, in a piece from 2010:

"If you believe that computers - which are widespread - pose a serious environmental hazard to children, then you have a responsibility to your peers and most importantly the public to present your theory clearly and formally in an academic journal, so your scientific peers can assess it.

"Baroness Greenfield’s response to my concerns, and my suggestion that she should write up her concerns about computers damaging childrens’ brains formally, has been to say that I am like the people who denied that smoking caused cancer. I think that’s just offensive, I’m afraid, and I’d be happy to debate her sensibly and publicly at her convenience."

Read the full piece "A clarification: why people have been concerned by Baroness Greenfield" here.

As for The Sun's headline. "Computer games ‘are giving kids dementia" - it's The Sun, a notorious trashbag of untruths and dubious dealings. Let's get over it.

Comments

DrkStr 14 Oct 2011 12:48
1/2
every hour you spend in front of a screen is an hour not spent climbing a tree or giving someone a hug

So is every hour I've spent reading drivel like hers that demonises one form of entertainment or another.

Actually, unless you're hugging someone up a tree while doing it, so is every hour reading a book.
Sly Reflex 14 Oct 2011 17:21
2/2
Michael Jackson was a big gamer, and he loved climbing trees. He was a nutter though. He like to sleep on the floor and not on the bed.
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