China has released various studies in the past about the adverse effects of video games on the development of young people. Over the weekend the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Wuhan, Hubei province released a report showing that more than half the cities teenagers have less understanding about life and death than primary school children.
The reason the intermediate school children were deemed “dumber”? Because of video games…
The CASS of Wuhan said they surveyed most of the cities minors about their thoughts on life and death. While surveying an unknown number of children, the survey found that 81.5 per cent of all fifth graders did not believe in reincarnation and that death was final while 61.4 per cent of intermediate and high school students believed in reincarnation.
While there doesn’t seem to be anything wrong with believing in reincarnation, the director o CASS Wuhan, Dong Shi, says that it is an issue. In his report, Dong said that the children’s “misunderstanding” of death is a dangerous thing created by video games.
“Children don’t come into contact with death, and the subject is fairly taboo,” said Dong. “However they come into the concept of death in video games and other media. Virtual death is not ubiquitous and to immature children, video game resurrection can create a disregard for life.”
“They might actually think they can be revived.”
Personally, I’m inclined to give the children the benefit of the doubt. Chinese studies are usually skewed in favour of whatever agenda the government is trying to push. Think video games and their relation to violence.
Dong’s study and the way it was worded says that middle school and high school students who play video games are dumber than primary school children that don’t. Without any real numbers on the number of children surveyed or how the survey was conducted, I can’t really believe what Dong is putting out there. Anecdotally there hasn’t been a mass dying of students in Wuhan believing they can be revived, has there?
[智商低过小学生！中学生沉迷网游相信死而复生] [CASS Wuhan Report Via Tencent]
Comments
9 responses to “Chinese Health Study: Video Games Making Children Dumb”
You mean if I die in real life, I won’t respawn? My whole life up until this point has been a lie. Curse you, video games. This is all your fault.
I hear there’s no New Life+ either. Lame!
The respawn glitch is going to be fixed in update 1.1. Because of the glitch, they were going to do a massive roll back last year in Decemberish, but on the 21st they announced that instead of a rollback, they’re just going to apply the patch in about 50 years or so
As for the New Life+, some people say if enter the Konami code it’ll appear 😉
If the picture implies they’re using FFVII as an example of reincarnation, they’ve clearly never finished Disc 1.
#1. Saying someone else “misunderstand”(s) death, is a moronic assertion unless you yourself understand death…. AND can prove it like a scientist… Mr. Scientist >.>
#2. Coming to the bold conclusion based on the fantasy vid games played: “They might actually think they can be revived.” [after death] is the second most stoopid think in this article. This scientist is speculating the thoughts of a research subject that has a mouth to answer back for him/her self… just ask them Zzz stoopid
There is no reliable quantification of the results (its a survey reliant on, often, biased questions). The results are completely independent of video games and the linking statistics that old kids play more games and older kids believing in reincarnation is downright bad research.
Incarnation is also a fundamental belief in certain Buddhist schools of thought, traditional to many Chinese families. I could easily make a conclusion that traditional beliefs are more prevalent in Chinese teenagers compared to primary schoolers which can suggests a shift away from traditional family beliefs in a more commercialized chinese society. I can be completely wrong, but hey, I made use those stats right?
The sad fact is that this came from the Chinese academy of social sciences, which is supposed to be a premier research institute…
I lived in Wuhan from 2004-2006 and I didn’t notice a whole heap of reincarnated high school kids. I did notice tasty food, cheap beer and rockin’ night clubs / KTV bars though, like many other cities in China.
I was misled by the title :'(
I thought it was implied that they were getting dumber in general, not just ignorant of certain information
I will get behind the argument that video games portray certain themes and events as glorified or grossly innaccurate, death being a very good example. But. How much of this information can be resolved by a bit of parenting? Parent: “Oh, you see how you killed that person then, that isn’t how it works in real life” problem solved.
*raises pitchfork*
Yeah, it’s clearly them dang vidya games! Teachin’ our younguns all about this “resurrection” nonsense! Now, if y’all excuse me, I gots to go pray to Jesus!
*grabs straw hat and leaves*
I was thinking that this was more of a religious influence a la buddhist or taoist or something such system where there’s the whole fate and karma or past lives and whatnot.
That’s funny, most of my education on reincarnation comes from Asian cinema. That, and if you take enough punishment and come close to death or have someone you love come close to death, you’ll unlock latent powers and kick the crap outta everyone.