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American Morning

Upside of Video Games

Aired May 29, 2003 - 08:44   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: In this morning's Paging Dr. Gupta, all of the hours kids spend playing video games may actually be doing them some good. New research suggests that tracking speeding race cars or mutant aliens can actually improve visual skills.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to tell us more about this.

Maybe we should tell all of the kids to go away from the TV for a minute. What do you think?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Here's an interesting thing -- do you know what the average age of a gamer is?

COLLINS: No.

GUPTA: Twenty eight.

COLLINS: So they are older?

GUPTA: Yes, they are older, but they are a lot of kids obviously playing, too. Twenty billion dollars a year people spend on video games around the world. Sixty-seven percent of households that have children in the United States also have video games.

And there's been a lot of research on this, Heidi, as you know, some of it talking about motor skills improving with video games. There's been some research showing that. There's also been some controversial research about video games and violence.

But now, in a very scientific journal, "Nature," which is one of the most scientific journals out there, they have a new study, and this study's finding shows that gamers process visual information more quickly. They track 30 percent or more objects.

Now I want to talk specifically about what that means here in second. Probably most remarkably, as few as 10 hours of play or more can actually lead to change. So just 10 hours, one or two hours a day for a week or so.

The lead author of the study had this to say: "Although video game playing may seem to rather mindless" -- a lot of people would agree with her -- "it is capable of radically altering visual attention processing." Big word. What that means is some of the studies, they put a bunch of boxes up on the screen, like maybe 23 or 24, just flash it up there, and gamers were able to count how many boxes were up there much more quickly than nongamers. They flash a light for 1/160th of a second, and gamers were more often than nongamers able to point exactly where that light flashed on the screen.

COLLINS: So where does this get you in life?

GUPTA: Yes, that's a good question. It's not going to improve your test scores probably on tests. It's probably not going to improve your I.Q., but there are some specific things that people talk about with regards to perhaps the military and training people for the military, doing things.

Right.

COLLINS: Fast hands?

GUPTA: Pilots, you would know about that, your husband, obviously. But also interesting from a medical standpoint, stroke victims, people who are trying to relearn some visual processing skills, being able to recalibrate their brain in way to make sense of some of things that they see. Gamers tend to have a easier time with that than nongamers.

COLLINS: What about the negative effects, though?

GUPTA: Well, this study didn't specifically look at the violence associated with video games. That's been something that's been studied. There've been lawsuits about this. There has been some research that shows video games and violence being linked. Another interesting thing, as well, Heidi, I thought was people ask the question, well, maybe it's just a type of people who play video games tend to be better at visual processing already, and it's really not the video games that do anything. They looked at that point as well, and they found people who never played video games, people like you perhaps, and they actually put them in a video game, made them play a game like "Medal of Honor," which is a very action-oriented, very dangerous, lots of moving things.

You can see some images there.

They actually improved their test scores as well.

So that leads some evidence that in fact it's the video game itself.

You can see all of the moving things on the screen there.

People who play this game a lot will be much better at visually processing, and that might have some benefit, like the things we were talking about.

COLLINS: When my little Riley comes to me a few years from now and says, but, mommy, the journal of "Nature" and Dr. Gupta, says it's OK, I should say, yes?

GUPTA: He's two years old. You got a little time. But yes, there might be some benefits out there.

COLLINS: Interesting stuff, thank you so much. Dr. Gupta, this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com






Aired May 29, 2003 - 08:44   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
HEIDI COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: In this morning's Paging Dr. Gupta, all of the hours kids spend playing video games may actually be doing them some good. New research suggests that tracking speeding race cars or mutant aliens can actually improve visual skills.
Dr. Sanjay Gupta is here to tell us more about this.

Maybe we should tell all of the kids to go away from the TV for a minute. What do you think?

DR. SANJAY GUPTA, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Here's an interesting thing -- do you know what the average age of a gamer is?

COLLINS: No.

GUPTA: Twenty eight.

COLLINS: So they are older?

GUPTA: Yes, they are older, but they are a lot of kids obviously playing, too. Twenty billion dollars a year people spend on video games around the world. Sixty-seven percent of households that have children in the United States also have video games.

And there's been a lot of research on this, Heidi, as you know, some of it talking about motor skills improving with video games. There's been some research showing that. There's also been some controversial research about video games and violence.

But now, in a very scientific journal, "Nature," which is one of the most scientific journals out there, they have a new study, and this study's finding shows that gamers process visual information more quickly. They track 30 percent or more objects.

Now I want to talk specifically about what that means here in second. Probably most remarkably, as few as 10 hours of play or more can actually lead to change. So just 10 hours, one or two hours a day for a week or so.

The lead author of the study had this to say: "Although video game playing may seem to rather mindless" -- a lot of people would agree with her -- "it is capable of radically altering visual attention processing." Big word. What that means is some of the studies, they put a bunch of boxes up on the screen, like maybe 23 or 24, just flash it up there, and gamers were able to count how many boxes were up there much more quickly than nongamers. They flash a light for 1/160th of a second, and gamers were more often than nongamers able to point exactly where that light flashed on the screen.

COLLINS: So where does this get you in life?

GUPTA: Yes, that's a good question. It's not going to improve your test scores probably on tests. It's probably not going to improve your I.Q., but there are some specific things that people talk about with regards to perhaps the military and training people for the military, doing things.

Right.

COLLINS: Fast hands?

GUPTA: Pilots, you would know about that, your husband, obviously. But also interesting from a medical standpoint, stroke victims, people who are trying to relearn some visual processing skills, being able to recalibrate their brain in way to make sense of some of things that they see. Gamers tend to have a easier time with that than nongamers.

COLLINS: What about the negative effects, though?

GUPTA: Well, this study didn't specifically look at the violence associated with video games. That's been something that's been studied. There've been lawsuits about this. There has been some research that shows video games and violence being linked. Another interesting thing, as well, Heidi, I thought was people ask the question, well, maybe it's just a type of people who play video games tend to be better at visual processing already, and it's really not the video games that do anything. They looked at that point as well, and they found people who never played video games, people like you perhaps, and they actually put them in a video game, made them play a game like "Medal of Honor," which is a very action-oriented, very dangerous, lots of moving things.

You can see some images there.

They actually improved their test scores as well.

So that leads some evidence that in fact it's the video game itself.

You can see all of the moving things on the screen there.

People who play this game a lot will be much better at visually processing, and that might have some benefit, like the things we were talking about.

COLLINS: When my little Riley comes to me a few years from now and says, but, mommy, the journal of "Nature" and Dr. Gupta, says it's OK, I should say, yes?

GUPTA: He's two years old. You got a little time. But yes, there might be some benefits out there.

COLLINS: Interesting stuff, thank you so much. Dr. Gupta, this morning.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com