Video Game Formats and Attention
What is visually most striking is the difference in filming style. A typical dramatic or comedy series 40 years ago took a story line and followed it in a fairly linear and steady-handed style--both cinematically and literarily--from the beginning through the middle and to the end. On shows such as C.S.I., for instance, the camera shakes, the field is murky or shattered by multiple images and light fragments, and the delivery is split into jaggedly-edited video clips that are jarring to the mind as well as the optic nerve.
This video-style filming has been known to have an effect on people's moods, particularly in developing brains.
Akio Mori, a professor at Tokyo''s NihonUniversity, conducted a recent study observing the effects of video games on brain activity. The results showed a decreaseof beta waves the more one played video games. "Beta wave activity in people in theexperimental group was constantly near zero, even when they weren't playing, showing that they hardly used the prefrontal regions of their brains."
Beta wave activity indicates liveliness in the prefrontal region of the brain. Many of the subjects in that group told researchers that they "got angry easily, couldn't concentrate, and had trouble associating with friends." (click here)
Another study cited found similar results and reported: "Youths who are heavy gamers can end up with ''video-game brain,'' in which key parts of the frontal region of their brain become chronically underused, altering moods."
Drama
On television, everything is a big deal. There is no perspective on anything. This
is understandable to a point. Even Shakespeare didn't write about the
relationships that worked. There's usually not much to say about them from a
writer's point of view.
On the other hand, when that is all people see, they become inured to the
subtleties and the quiet that is necessary to good relationships in ordinary
life.
And therein lies part of the caveat both reflected and inspired by the lives led on television--ordinary is far too ordinary.
One of the most famous examples of this syndrome is what happened with the WWII veterans who had seen so much drama and horror that the ordinary lives they returned to were intolerable. Many of them took to riding instead of flying and, by some accounts, a couple of those veterans inspired the beginnings of the Hells Angels. It is not dissimilar neurologically from what happens in an addiction. You need more and more of it (near-death experiences, skin-crawling escapes, recklessness and thrill) to feel anything at all. We see it still and we call it Post-traumatic stress disorder.
What should we call it when the stressor is CNN? Or CSI? Or Allstate?
There's Always an Enemy: Viral Fear on TV
Perhaps this isn't entirely new, but it seems to have been brought to new heights. Shakespeare was a master at creating tension between a protagonist and a hidden or furtive antagonist almost 500 years. It is true that enemies are as old as Cain and Abel.
But something is different with the intensity and the anonymity of the danger the enemy represents. Not to mention that in this go-around with fear, the fate of not one man, or one prince or even one kingdom is at stake--it's the whole world and everything in it.
(Note: You can view every article as one long page if you sign up as an Advocate Member, or higher).
1
1
1
