Professor Dong Wong Cho of Chungbuk Provincial College in South Korea has an idea about violent video games. And it’s truly bonkers. According to Professor Cho’s latest study, violent video games make graphics cards run hot and emit more radio waves. Thus, the scholar argues, this means violent video games are more harmful for the body. M’kay.
Korean site Inven (via tipster Sang) reports that the professor’s study apparently revealed that a game’s graphics card temperature was 36C when idling. Now, that sounds about right. The card’s temperature apparently increased to 45C during a racing game.
But then Professor Cho’s study stated that when a “violent game” was played, the graphics card temperature supposedly shot up to 57C. In turn, the game emitted more radio waves.
Korean site Inven was bewildered by Professor Cho’s research and pointed out that using a graphics card to decode HD videos can increase temperature to around 80C. What’s more, Inven also noted that people in computer design are often running programs that use GPU acceleration, putting them in a more harmful environment than the vast majority of “violent game” playing gamers.
To prove that this isn’t a “violence” issue and that Professor Cho’s theory is bunk, Inven played Manhunt on PC. While Manhunt isn’t a new game, it is certainly violent. It also hardly put any heat on the computer’s graphics card.
As Yonhap News (also via Sang) noted, Professor Cho hopes to present his findings at an upcoming Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering seminar.
Previously, Professor Cho has apparently published research on how drinking for three days straight will cause liver damage, how watching porn will cause unmarried men liver damage, and how smartphones cause people to have irregular voices. He sounds like a very serious researcher.
Online in South Korea, people are flabbergasted by his latest research. Some are even joking that 3DMark or similar graphic benchmarks should be labelled as “harmful”.
폭력적인 게임일수록 전자파가 높아 위험하다 [Inven]
폭력성 게임일수록 컴퓨터 전자파 상승 [Yonhap News]
Comments
15 responses to “You Won’t Believe This Violent Video Game Theory”
Dong Wong Cho, really?
Sounds like somebody wants a shelf full of Ig Nobel awards.
*bdoom tish*
Aren’t the Ig Nobels only awarded to quirky but true research?
I think somebody has just begun a long term study exploring the correlation between alcohol + drugs and brain damage.
Imma gonna go ahead and guess Chungbuk Provincial College isn’t exactly a world leader
Dear god, will someone pleeeeease ensure natural selection bumps this guy off…
Hahaha read only the first paragraph. This guy is a professor? Oh my god. What has this world come to?
you were right I don’t believe it. Hahaha this is awesome lol.
I would say his theory is more harmful than the actual idea of violence in video games, for everytie says something I am sure brain cells commit suicide.
As soon as I read the title I was already preparing a post in my head along the lines of…
“I’ve been playing games for so long I’ve seen every violent video game argument, you can’t surprise me”.
I’ll admit when when I’m wrong.
Read the rest of the article. Had a good laugh. Thanks man.
Won’t someone please think of the people living next to radio towers?!?
I’m interested to know why watching pr0n damages the liver of unmarried men, and not married men.
Are…are we sure he’s not from the crazy, unicorn-discovering part of Korea?
He’s obviously not a professor of biology.
South Korea has some very good doctors and scientists (some of the smartest medical students in my class are from South Korea, and speak perfect english too, with an Australian accent no less), but there are some pseudo-scientific beliefs which persist in South Korea, even amongst the educated populace who should know better.
“Harmful Radio Waves” is one of those myths. South Korean Physicists know it’s garbage, but you’d be surprised how many Korean doctors still believe in it, just because its been repeated so many times. “Fan Death” is a legendary South Korean Myth that has been propagated even by the government and some doctors in South Korean REALLY do believe that if you leave a fan on in a small room with a closed door, it can kill you. The whole thing is nonsense, and many South Koreans know its nonsense (if it existed, then, why hasn’t it occurred anywhere else?).
Then again, many nations have similar myths, and South Korea is not the only nation turning out junk research carried out by “scientists” who aren’t actually, you know, scientists but want to pretend they are.
So people with liquid cooled systems should be fine, yes?
I’m pretty sure that this study is invalid and unreliable…