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Those who’ve read my previous articles know that I’ve become particularly interested in gaming this year – especially the effects that certain rapid flashing games can have upon a person’s brain. Only after my son had multiple seizures for the first time in 2014 did I delve into any potential links between video games and his condition.
Thankfully, several medical tests revealed that his seizures weren’t triggered by the kinds of blinding strobe lighting that affect folks living with epilepsy, but seemed to be due to other factors. However, that experience didn’t end my interest in gaming and all of its known affects on our brains, especially the positive ways that playing video games can improve our intelligence and hand-eye coordination.
The guy who had an MRI whilst playing a video game
My research led me to an article I found named “My Brain on Video Games,” by Matt Richtel. It opens with the writer from The New York Times lying in an MRI machine, but it isn’t your typical doctor’s appointment. Instead of crying and asking the technician to remove him from the claustrophobia-inducing tube like I did when I underwent an MRI – and the kind technician told me, “That’s okay, you’re the third one today,” and sent me home with a prescription for anti-anxiety pills – Richtel played a racing car game during his time in the tube.
The purpose of the study was to unveil how our brains might respond to multiple stimuli such as those that video games afford, and yet the results of such research weren’t easy to interpret. What followed were detailed neurological explanations of things like motor cortex responses, the kind of stuff that involves my brain telling my fingers to type these particular words on my MacBook Air at the moment.
Ultimately, what I found most intriguing about the endeavor was what the video game playing MRI research revealed about multi-tasking.
How multi-tasking during gaming affects “super-taskers” and others
Of course, I’d like to think of myself as a “super-tasker,” one of those people that can handle a bunch of conflicting stimuli at once – like Air Force fighter pilots or those simply playing flight-simulated games with adeptness. Those types of folks can readily switch from one task to another without getting thrown off their game.
In the end, that specific writer discovered that switching from the driving mode of his video game to immediately react to other objects on the screen coming his way put a certain level of taxation on his brain. These discoveries make sense, and we can even feel them on a visceral level when gaming and conducting a certain main maneuver – yet then must immediately shoot other objects on the screen, or swerve out of the way of a deterrent.
The findings I hope that aren’t true is that a person’s ability to multi-task falls sharply as they reach their 40s. Instead, here’s hoping all the video game playing ensures we’ll all be more adept at adapting to change, wherever it resides.