The gameboy, sure. I had to rotate my back about 728 degrees through all 3 dimensions just to get some light on that bloody screen. The DS you can play however, assuming you have arms.

Super Gameboy! Now all of your posture and backlighting problems are solved, and you can set your own two-tone color scheme.

This is actually one of the reasons I don't do much handheld gaming. Shit gets uncomfortable for me.

That said, reading books is exactly the same. I am constantly shifting my body around trying to find a comfy position.

It's not about games but about gamers.
You can't blame games just because some gamers like to be 2 inchs of the screen.

My brother had scoliosis surgery about a year ago and I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with video games.

I blame backpacks more for my back pain.

These books are heavy, and WE NEVER FUCKING USE THEM AT ALL.

Yeah, what about all of those hours children spend hunched over a desk in school for five days a week? Also, the backpack comment made by Daxelman is 100% true as well. I haven't been in school for a while, but I remember having a lot of back pains from sitting hunched over a desk for hours a day and having to lug around a backpack full of heavy books and other school related material that wasn't used a lot of the time. If fact it got worse as I got older because I was forced to carry all of my books in my backpack and completely forgo using my locker because it often made me late and got me in trouble. My backpack probably weighed a good 30+ pounds, maybe more. The straps would rip right off due to the amount of weight I had to carry around in there. I spent more time doing that than playing handheld gaming consoles, so what is the explanation there?

And here I am thinking that the car accident I was in as an 11 year old were the root cause of my back problems. Silly me, it must have been all those video games. (fun fact: I was playing Shinobi II on the Game Gear when my family's mini-van was rear ended)

The whole point of this is some random person calling out videogames in an attempt to garner attention for themselves, which is exactly why I didn't provide the doctor's name or place of business in the post. She wants to be famous, survey says: BZZZZZZT

This just in: Waggle causes Parkinson's.

I like how gamers are all of a sudden experts on all-things .. Great article Topher. I realize you're obviously a god among men, however, you didn't do any studies. I know - I know! You did a google search.

Good job!

I play video games. My day job requires me to be at a computer all day. I draw. I read. I'm also a goalie in hockey.

I spend roughly 90% of my time hunched over and yet I've never had back problems.

That "doctor" can kiss my perfectly healthy backside.

I just cant understand why gamers cant grow the fuck up,
I like to have a smoke once in the while I know its bad for me and its fucking my health, but when i see a new study saying smoking is bad for me I don't make a blog post to try to tell myself its all nonsense. Of course gaming is bad for me, it fucks your back your eyes and its a waste of fucking time, I know all this and i don't need to comfort myself that games are great for me, plus I like how game blogger shit on all these studies THE FUCK YOU KNOW, YOU ARE MAKING A LIVING WRITING ABOUT GAMES, YOURE GAME BLOGER, SO SHUT THE FUCK UP, WRITE ABOUT THE ONLY THINGS YOU KNOW SOMETHING and leave medicine to the people who know something, like the doctors who have studied this stuff....

That's more like it.

and you know its bullshit because....?

Finally, a breath of fresh air

I think it's worth noting that, in the source article, the chiropractor isn't quoted singling out videogames. Just because the study says playing handhelds are the cause of many cases, doesn't mean it's painted as the leading cause. I think it's just the reporter sensationalising.

Oh, a scientific study that puts gaming in a negative light. It MUST be wrong!

GoldenGamerXero:
Last time I heard, relatively small section of people who smoke get cancer. A majority of people I know who smokes doesn't/didn't get cancer. Animals get cancer too, and they don't smoke. So smoking does not cause cancer. There's common sense for ya.. If science didn't investigate the link of smoking to cancer, it'd take quite longer to figure that out, wouldn't it??

A bad posture is a bad posture, hand held gaming specifically induces that posture for prolonged hours, unlike tying your shoes or petting your cats and small dogs like the author of this post has unimaginatively claims for the sake of being hillarious. Yes, reading a book with the wrong posture is harmful too but you can do it the right way by reading on a desk with the correct posture, you'd be less likely to play a handheld in a correct posture which I guess is also possible. This article should give a message to parent to be alarmed about it.

@---AMARU---: Your single anecdote on how you, as one person out of the hundreds of millions who play games in the world, don't do something that this study says some children do, DOES NOT prove the study to be bogus.

A chiropractor is not the same thing as a Doctor - often Chiropractors are nothing more than quacks (seriously, some chiropractors claim that they can cure ANY disease by moving your bones. Even cancer).

My sister has a very mild form of scoliosis. Nothing that prevents her from living her life. From all the literature I can read, it is almost certainly either partially or totally genetic. My sister NEVER played video-games when she was younger.

No one is entirely sure what causes scoliosis. But video games ain't one of the reasons.

And before you say "Study shows", make sure you look at who is doing the "studying". Chiropractors are not scientists, not doctors. At best they are glorified physical therapists. At worst, they are dangerous quacks who practice "hujo-mujo" type nonsense "medicine".

Korolev, anybody who tells you that they are going to cure cancer by adjusting you would indeed be a quack. Personally I don't know of any chiropractors who would make such a claim. We are however "doctors" no matter how much you might like to think otherwise. Doctor is a degree just like "bachelors" or "masters". We are not "medical doctors" although we have many of the same classes as them and go to school for a comparable amount of time. Really the biggest difference in our education is that MDs have a great deal of classes on pharmacology where DCs have many more on the musculoskeletal system and neurology. We generally deal with very different things you see. If I was having a heart attack would I want someone to adjust C1? Good lord no! I'd like to be driven to the emergency room ASAP. However if one of my MD friends' child had scoliosis I'm sure he would bring them to see me to see if I could help before commiting them to surgery where Herrington rods are fused into their spines condemning them to a life of back pain. I'm not sure what chiropractor wronged you or your family so deeply in the past as to make you so bitter, but rest assured we are not out to get you. As for scoliosis of course you can get it without playing videogames. Can you get it even if you have perfect posture your whole life? Absolutely, there are lots of genetic factors at work, but the odds of developing it skyrocket if you have poor posture. Lots of things CAN cause you to have poor posture if you do them improperly including videogames, reading, driving and even writing spitefully on videogame blogs about things that you know little about! I hope this was helpful to you.

i got back problem from school, the desk are so unsupportive and i slup over to write

@Topher pretty sure your niece sounds like the cutest thing EVER.

chiropractors aren't proper doctors. no more that any other homeopathy quack.

i would doubt anybody who doesn't have a degree in any of the sciences to conduct a study using proper and thorough scientific methods. If its a problem with the children, then dont blame the video games, BLAME THE GODDAM PARENTS WHO ALLOW THEIR CHILDREN BE BE RAISED BY CONSOLES!

my parents kicked me out the house to play outside when they thought i'd played enough games, and now im thankful for that.