Hi everyone - I've been sitting on this for a while and I think its something you should know about. After reviewing and following several medical articles on the internet I decided to post this message:

Do you get sick from playing certain FPS games. Like your going to puke but not because the game is puke. Or do you get headaches or feel really sleepy, or get bombed out for hours or days after playing console games.

Well researchers (those people you see walking around in white coats), have discovered that some FPS games cause an inbalance to your nervous system.

This happen when you are positioned at a particular distance and your field of vision is taken up by the frame of your TV or Monitor. Computers are no different if you are a game tester or player. By use of different consoles there is no difference in cause and effect.

Normally when you walk around, your field of vision is determining the space in front of you and the surounding area to balance you body movement. However when you are stationary you mind is tricked into thinking about movement ingame and your normal body nervous system gets a bit screwed up from trying to synaps the movement of limbs that are not moving.

Your concentration on a fixed distance doesnt help either and the #3D environment and moving screen is telling your eyes and brain that you are moving. What causes gamer symptom sickness (GSS) is the balance sensors in your ears because they are constantly adjusting the feedback from the nervous system but they normally adjust due to movement of the body as the inner ear is a balance for the brain. If you nod or move your head backwards or try to look around a corner ingame thats a perceptive trick, you brain senses the movement but the ears dont recognise body movement because your sitting still and you cant fall out of your chair in such a comfortable state. The wires of the synaps are crossed and feedback causes an inbalance in normal chemical processes in your body.

This might seem a relatively short term problem with stints of a few hours a day being regular game play for almos hardcoe players. But it is now being discussed that a more long term effect could be that eye sight and sensory processes could be impaired through systematic overuse or longer extensive gaming where period of more that 4 hours are played either continuously or a pattern of at least 4 hours per day indicating neccessity toward addictive behaviour gaming. This is somewhat proven in behaviour management where addictive behavour outweighs the neccessity to function in normal life pattern. In Asia there have been known cases where 2 addicted gamers have died from self-starvation at their console, one recently in 2009.

But there is a far greater risk of suicide and self harm that researchers are now warning about in long term effects of GSS and in mood depression related issues where permanent change of character and not yet understood but possible damage to synaps receptors of the nervous system are being repeatedly used. The research goes on to explain that receptors are linked with balancing the chemical composition of the body and maintaining normal health. When the body becomes inbalanced, it is mood and sensory areas that get affected first. It is not like getting a cold or the flu.

Dont be alarmed and suddenly give up gaming. All games come with health warnings and are pasted in very fine print (you need a magnifying glass to read) on published content to warn of epilepsy and known disorders. The above newer findings are likely to be registered as known fairly soon, but so you know, these are the findings:

The reserch states that highest risk candidates play for more than 4 hours at a time and at least X4 weekly. If you play more than 6 hours as above, you can double your risk. But the finding dont stop at this alone. it says that many gamers will require glasses before the age of 35 and further damage could impair or increase risk of eye type diseases or even semi-blindness. This is yet to be proven but they say they will have a better idea in the next 15 years because there will be an assessed group of candidates in the middle age groups of greater risk. There are a huge number of gamers who play for more than 8 hours in weekend sessions over 2 and 3 days, which is extraordinarily high but researchers have no data for this group as yet.

So far you are just increasing the likelyhood that you will need glasses by age 35.

There is further research for damage to hearing where gamers wearing earpods that are of poor quality and are not sound cancelling. The amplitude of sound to the eardrum is x2 normal surround room speakers. This means that if you wear earpods and are listening at 60dB its really 120dB in a normal room. Significant irreversible damage occurs at 80+dB. I worked on a building site for 15 years and I'm half deaf for that alone.

Deafness is better than being blind but both have ramifications on your lifestyle you could buy the right gear for your ears to avoid tomorrows misgivings. I'm not saying to stop playing your games, I've been playing now for over 20 years, but I can see the signs and I'm just passing on some information I'm keeping a track on so I'm in the know and to say they are on the right track. I dont get sick from games, but I know people who do and they just dont play those titles, simple. But also one should determine how long they play for and the conditions they place on their body. I have a friend who is paraplegic - they play some computer games just like reading a book as pleasure and contact with other people with the same interest. It is important to put balance into perspective and know that turning off the console after a few hours for a break is likely to improve your health than sitting it out for a huge session that burns night into day and vise-versa.

If you live in the USA, UK, Australia, Japan, Korea there are anonymous groups to help you with addiction to games and anger management which is associated to gamer mood swings, and chemical inbalance.

One last thing is the fps- screen frame rate - in computers its best above 64fps; On TV's though you need to get a Digital Flat screen that refreshes at 100fps. Most older Flat screens are 50fps - the current newer models are 200fps. Frame rate affects fatigue - firstly eyes then retinal nerve. You will notice increased tiredness and rubbing your eyes wont help. Get some sleep and avoid watching LCD or Plasma screens for a bit. If you damage the retinal nerve, well dont expect to be playing console games thereafter. The side effects of retinal damage causes dizzyness due to a state of vision and sensory disorientation. It will basically impare you to being dependent on medical help and the probability of eye surgery.

There is no realistic compensation for self inflicted damage to your health. Personal health cover is not likely in the future, to cover you for something that you could prevent a decade earlier. Even in the current research, the insurance companies have their ears open and are refining the contracts of the future generations. I fear that many people will wish that they acted sooner, but for some skeptics a game may seem to look more like entertaining the devil. Don't be fooled into thinking its not good for you. Just be aware that you are in control of your own health.


References:
World Medical Association
American Medical Association
AMWA Journal

Cheers, shame this this thread will get dropped.

I am scared.

BUMP!!!

KILL THE ANTI GAMER!!!!

KILL THE ANTI GAMER!!!!
you are hunting the wrong party - I'm a hardcoe gamer and have been for way more than 10 years now. I'm not intending to give up a practice that I enjoy until I cannot keep up with the fray. I'll keep telling you how it is really because most people dont give a s**t what they say. Its only a bunch of letters afterall.

Damn, now I got scared xD

LIAR !!!

A game hater! go away, we are all gamers and thats we do to make our lives less depressing and give it more thrills!!!

This should be in the general or off-topic forums. Interesting read, but I am still going to game. I've been doing it for about 24 years, I'm 27 btw, and I haven't noticed any adverse side effects, but according to "the guys in white coats" my nervous system is broken. lol

I have glasses and play games alot

I'm going to dieeeeeeeeee D:

I'm glad you all have the same resilience as i have become a snail that feels its way into a new game - hence snails are blind- so I recon there will games in the future to take care of us who are thick skinned and hard of hearing.

Very Interesting read, I may actually seek out some of that source material for my own benefit. I've been on building sites for 10 years myself and have "Industrial Deafness" as is what that form of hearing loss is officially termed, being a builder is not the only cause of my disorder, going to concerts has also impacted my hearing, I refuse to use earpods as a result and will only use high-quality DJ headphones if and when I listen to something in that manner.

They'll have to add GSS to Nintendo Thumb and Game Addiction as known disorders associated with repetetive gaming.

On a simillar note, I've been following a study into aggression and anti-social behaviour from prolonged video game use and the findings so far have been not only really eye-opening but at times nearly bizarre, it seems that white males under the age of 25 should have serious limits as to how many hours they play games (especially multiplayers) each day/week. They become overly aggresive at the drop of a hat (we can all relate to that I think, having heard the distribe of enough 20 something white males over a mic on MP's). And before you take me the wrong way, I am a 27 year old white male.

The results I have read on other ethnicities and genders are strange, it seem there is little negative consequence to young females playing multiplayers, their team-building and social abilities seem to become stronger with small amounts of structured gaming, and for young black and asian males it so far seems that it increases their tendencies to socialise with other young males outside of their own ethnicity.

I wish I could remember the name of the study, I read it a few months ago and they were just preliminary findings half way through the study.

And as to the content of your original post, I find if my eyes do become a bit irritated or sore from over gaming (I.E. Staring at a screen and rarely blinking), that reading a nice old fashion book is a very good remedy. I don't quite understand what it is about that activity that seems to ameliorate the irritation to the eye, but if I had to hazzard a guess it would be that it forces you to move your eyes side to side over a static object, focus harder on certain distinct elements rather than try to watch an entire screen and changes the direction of light being reflected back into the eye itself.

Great Post, Thanks for bringing a bit of class and intelligence to the Forums - MullPig

All I saw was a load of scare-mongering. You can become addicted to anything.

If you read any of it, you would have realised none of it is scare mongering of any sort, just an intelligent discussion - None of us here are giving up gaming because of whatever impact it has on our health.

So if you wanna troll or mis-understand the reason for a thread, please, keep it to the many, many clone-threads complaining about something.

This is like me coming out and saying guys in white coats have sat down and discussed the moon is made of cheese.

Seriously there is reports of video games nulifying pain and encouraging creativity in children aswell as developing keen hand to eye co-ordination and like anything thats covered by media its hard to find an unbiassed 100% factual opinion.

Just look at the fitness industry, All the **** that floats around there and the amount of people that make money out of scamming people with BS ads. THe only secret being "Eat less, Exercise more"

Most of these reports are theorys supported by evidence but more often than not there is so many different variations in human beings its hard to tell if something will affect an individual or not. The Human Brain is complex and diverse among different beings, E.g I tried smoking and was able to give it up after a day without getting addicted were some people become immeadiately addicted.

Killorbekilld does provide some sources though, so anyone interested can go a track it down and make their own decision, doesn't hurt to have a discussion about these things does it? Also, I can't see anyone making much money out of getting males aged 17-30+ to stop playing video games.

Wish I could remember where I read the case study I was talking about, but short term memory loss is something you just take in your stride if you smoke plenty of weed. ;D

Which is another area of research you can take a pinch of salt with, ultimately it come down to the individual's reaction.

On the other hand, Mullpig, there is plenty of research concerning cancer and the effects of THC (the stuff that makes weed go booom!!) on the intestine, for example, regarding tissue regeneration. Or the effects of THC improving the lives of multiple sclerosis patients. On the other hand, it's probably a "choose the lesser of two evils" situation. What it is for sure is something that hasn't been fully understood. In these cases both sides struggle with their arguments.