Do Video Games Mess With Your Mind?

Hey, do any of you guys think that video games mess with your mind at all? Maybe in a good or bad way? I think that it does a little. Maybe..in a sense? I don't know...I'm kinda on the edge with this one. What do you guys think? And by mess with your mind, I mean do games influence/change people?

 

I (as always) never hit people or attack them, so I am not violent. But when I started playing DMC3 I became a little bit more violent, and I get pissed more easily a little bit. So I think that games mess with your mind a little, not much only a little bit I still am not violent

 

No. I do not believe video games mess with your mind. They may affect what you do, just as how everything else does. They may affect what you do in a good or bad way, depending on the content of the game itself. But the wide variety of content in many different games makes it hard for me to say that video games 'mess with your mind'.

 

Games really haven't affected me. I'm not an aggressive person & it takes a lot for me to get aggressive. I suppose it depends on how stable your mind is. You can get people who are a bit "crazy" or just plain stupid & may try to mimic things they see in games, but you get people who mimic things they see in movies.

 

It's my experience that video games CAN affect more of your extreme behaviors. If you are already very aggressive, a violent game could enhance that aggression. I don't believe video games instill behaviors you do not have. If you're a passive person I doubt a game will make you beat the crap out of your best friend.

 

I would say it depends on the person and how influenced they are. If a thought can be placed into their heads in other words.

If say a naturally agressive person with a tendency to react to planted suggestions played a game like DMC, they may get a little more agressive. But put a Bhuddist Monk in front of the game screen, I don't think it'll make a killer out of him.

I myself balance the more violent games I play like Resident Evil etc. with a nice platformer like the original Jak and Daxter.

 

Yeah, video games DO mess with the mind, sometimes. It's really those violent games that do that.

Videogames messed with my mind. xD That's how I became weird.

 

They can definitely stimulate the imagination and can have profound effects on your creative ability, but they don't mess with your mind. On a physical level, the framerate of a video game is no different from that of a television, so nothing is degraded or damaged by playing a video game-- stimulated yes, but not damaged. With regards to making people more violent or to lose touch with reality, it has to deal with how much was invested into teaching a person at a very young age that there is a difference between reality and make-believe. If a child isn't taught the difference then any media can become "mind-warping" to them if used excessively.

 

Well, I don't think they've changed me in the slightest.

On the other hand, when I saw a bird swoop the other day, I totally jumped because I thought it was going to attack me (since I'd been playing a video game where birds attack you). xD;

 

as was already mentioned, they might enchance whats already there even if its something you might not have noticed before. i tend to be quite/very impatient tho i dont know if thats connected to gaming.
games can make me angry/frustrated and i sometimes take that out on people around me at the time but i dont carry it around with me (bet i sound like a right pyscho now.....:D )

 

That's cool that you brought that up Bunt, afterall astronauts train in simulators to increase reaction time, dexterity, and alertness for real shuttle launches. As for other cases, like Counter-Strike being blamed for the Columbine and Virginia Tech disasters, saying that playing a video game was responsible is highly dubious.

 

yeah, those incidents cant be blamed on games, they might have had a slight effect but the thing inside the people was already there the number/type of games they play was never going to stop that, maybe bring it on sooner but not be the only cause

 

Me personally no, but people who can't not tell the difference between real life and fantasy. those are the people who scare me. They can give people more imaginative thoughts and ideas. I.E. kingdom hearts gave me something do draw about, but outside of that I don't think that video games affect peoples mind outside of creativity.

 

Yeah, you're all right, but it is true that games can awaken anger that was there all along (I mean anger against your schoolmates for making fun of you, anger against people, anger against everything). But it is true that I have a friend that is not (physical violence) violent at all but he plays many many many violent games. But sometimes he starts talking things about people like we should take a gun or grenade and kill them all. Weird huh

 

Yes I think they do, because I think am more out-going rom playing most games and a little wride from them.

There has been one boy who played Man hunt then went out and killed someone because it was in the game

 

I think video games have affected my mind, but in a good way. I've become smarter from playing them. They make me more creative, make me think faster, and make me strategize better(most of that is from Socom and it comes in use alot).

 

Of course video games DON'T mess with your head! Now, if you excuse me, I need get my giant Key and beat up a silver-haired guy in a black cloak. [/sarcasm]

Seriously, if you allow video games to make you kill someone or something like that, you were crazy to begin with.

If parents don't want their kids to play GTA or something, DON'T FRIGGIN LET THEM!

 

I'm starting to wonder if anyone else realized that the person asked "Does it mess with your head in a good or bad way," because so far people have just said not in a bad way and that it doesn't cause incidents...

 

I've been wondering the same thing...I mean, I veiw life differently with LOADS of video games I've played. Light's better then darkness. But...I'm guessing you and everyone else doesn't care...*Get's mauled by Cerberus*

 

Last week I had a project at my class about how video games affect people's and especially teenagers' brain and I had found an article about that subject.
For the first time doctors from a university had tested the effects of video games in teenagers brain. The picked 44 teenagers and split them randomly into two teams. The children from the first team, had to play a violent game for 30 minutes. The children from the second team had to play for 30 minutes too a not-violent game but equally interesting.

After that, the researchers used the functional magnetic tomography (fMRI) to study the functionality of the children's brain during different activities. This method allows the identification of slight changes that occur in the brain when different functional structures are activated.
The results are quite interesting:

-To the teenagers that had played the violent video game, reduction in the activation of the brain's regions responsible for self-monitoring(i think that's the word, which means self-control), concentration and suspension was observed.

However, more activation in the brain's structures that involve emotional excitation was observed.

-To the teenagers having played the equally interesting but not-violent game, no changes to the structures were observed.