By the age of 21 it is estimated the average young person will have spent weeks of their life glued to games such as Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario or Call of Duty.Video gamers around the world play for THREE BILLION hours every week.
A typical “screenager” will spend several hours a week gaming, and by the age of 21 it is estimated the average young person will have spent weeks of their life glued to games such as Grand Theft Auto, Super Mario or Call of Duty.
But a study is now warning that this could change the way that children use their brains, leading to mental illnesses such as dementia and depression.
The research, by the University of Montreal, found that sustained gaming could lead youngsters to neglect parts of their brains, with devastating results.
Scientists monitored the brain activity and eye movements of gamers using state-of-the-art “skull caps” and compared them with those of non-gamers.
They found gamers were far more likely than non-gamers to use an area of the brain referred to as the “reward system”, rather than the hippocampus, which controls memory, learning and emotion.
Lead author Dr Gregory West explains: “This means people who play a lot of action video games could have reduced hippocampal integrity, which is associated with increased risk for neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.”