Here's a bit of good videogame news to start your work week out with. A child from Billericay, Essex, had his eyesight saved by playing Mario Kart for two hours every day. Six-year-old Ben Michaels suffered from amblyopia, a severe lazy eye syndrome, in his right eye from the age of four. His doctor recommended him to a specialist who in turned recommended he played Mario Kart on his DS for two hours every day while wearing a patch over his dominant eye. This would, evidently, strengthen the weakened eye.
This works because (a) children want to play videogames so they actually participate in the treatment and (b) because videogames encourage repetitive eye movement, which trains the eye to focus correctly. Ben's mother claims that his eyesight has improved 250 percent since he started playing Mario Kart and that his ability to hit a bitch with a green shell from three places behind has skyrocketed up 1 bajillion percent.
The consultant who prescribed the therapy does admit that they aren't sure what is really at work when children play games to improve their eyesight. "What we don’t know is whether improvement is solely because of improved compliance, i.e. the child sticks with the patch more, or whether there is a physiological improvement from perceptual visual learning," he told the Daily Mail.
Who cares about the why of it, though. I'm going to drive over to my parents house and tell my mom that sitting too close to the TV was actually good for me this entire time. Sweet vindication!
Matthew Razak is Destructoid's Associate editor and co-founder of film site
Flixist. He began as community member "cowzilla" and was since sequestered to write brainy features material. He lives in Los Angeles with his beautiful wife.
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3:00 AM on 06.28.2010
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Not to mention our hand-eye co-ordination.
Thanks Veedyo gaems!
I would suspect it's different for everyone, but in the very least, doing any hobby that involves a backlit screen for an excessive amount in an unhealthy situation (ie. playing video games for 4 hours straight at night with the lights turned off while only 2 feet away from the TV screen) may impact one's eyesight. I know as a kid my eyesight went straight to shit as soon as I discovered that I could read books and play as much video games as I wanted as long as I did it at night with the lights off, and since I had to keep the volume low, I had to get really close to the TV...
Probably not the best decision as a kid, but despite my terrible eyesight, I have damn good hand-eye coordination.
Rather in fact, the reason a child would move closer and closer to a television was because his eye sight was getting bad (minus the television), so dun dun daaaaa he would move closer to the TV, but when parents saw this they blamed the TV.
It's been almost 100 years and this notion is still around.
So far in recent research the only corresponding result from watching TV in the dark is possibly getting tired enough to want to fall asleep, this results in a person rubbing their eyes, yawning, ect,. This would also explain why some have a hard time concentrating after such an event.
Don't fret however lots of people perpetuate this myth, and the SOB will never die.
Interesting read. Better than sifting through a Wikipedia article. :D
...Yeah, I'll show myself out.
Thats called some muhfuckin science right there.
Probably the best thing I'll read all day.
That was an interesting and informative explanation. I actually know that for the most part, video games=bad eyesight is BS but you hear so many anecdotes, you can't help but wonder who's right. Hell, just look at how many gamers happen to wear glasses. Still doesn't explain how my eyesight got worse after I started reading with dim lights and playing video games in the dark though. Highly convenient occurance I suppose?