Monday, April 19, 2010

Video games and their impact on sleep

Researchers from the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine thought that playing a video game right before bed would make it harder for kids to fall asleep. They preformed an experiment that had kids play the violent game “Call of Duty” on one night and watch the tranquil movie “March of the Penguins” on another. Playing the game didn’t make much of a difference in the amount of time it took for the kids to fall asleep.

Their results show more about brain activity, and how stimulated someone is, and if they can fall asleep. I think there are a lot of things that need to be taken into consideration, the main thing is, do the kids play this game on a regular basis and how much they enjoy it. I find that when I am really into a video game (or something else, like a book) I find it harder to concentrate on other things because I want to finish a level or chapter. I think the experiment could be done where they take people who play often and really enjoy what they are playing and have them play before bed one night, and on another night, have them not play the game for the whole day. I think that if people think less about it during the day, they will have an easier time not thinking about it before they fall asleep at night.

1 comment:

Julie Kim said...

Although I agree with what Idakai is saying about an experiment where kids with a love for the same game should grouped together and be tested in that sense, I also thought that the movie choice was an interesting one as well. A group of researchers from the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine wanted to test how much of a margin existed for the time it took a child to fall asleep after playing a violent video game in comparison to a relaxing video. Surprisingly it was found that only a four minute margin existed between the two (after playing the violent video game, it took four minutes longer).
Although it was an interesting experiment, I found myself wondering if March of the Penguins was too tranquil a movie for children of that age to be compelled to be interested. I believe that there is just such a major difference of excitement level between the two that it makes me wonder if the study can be truly conclusive.