Technology’s Impact on Children

by Claudia Pluck

Technology is not only changing every second of every day, but it’s also changing the way it is impacting children all at the same time. Children are learning about technology faster and faster every day and how to use the devices. Devices are made for children of all ages including toddlers now too. According to Karehka Ramey from useoftechnology.com, technology is used more by children nowadays than it ever has since the 1990s.

 Karehka also says that children use different technologies including things like television, social networks, internet, video games, smartphones and even things like the calculator. Using things like the calculator prevent children from doing things with there own brain to actually learn and process what is going on when doing different things. Some things include different math problems and in different situations when they get older like when paying their own bills.

 Slowly and slowly while learning these different forms of technology children can become lazier because they start to not use their brain and not function much by just sitting on the couch all day using technology. Using the technology too much can cause children to have weight problems which can lead to serious diseases that last for the rest of their lives. Karehka Also says technology can also restrict children from interacting which other kids and can lead to children being very lonely or depressed.

 We may start to now think that it is all because of the children, but it is not.  Karehka says that parents as the adults have the responsibility to give children a limit on how much time is enough time for children to be using the technology on a daily basis.  Laziness from technology can be prevented everyday by parents making sure their children are being active for the appropriate amount of time everyday.

 As to all of that, Karehka also says parents and children using technology need to be aware of the predators that lurk on the internet. That then being said the internet can not only affect if children are safe from these dangerous people, but can also affect the parents seeing that their children have the possibility of being stolen.

 Technology for children is not only just a negative thing but it can also be a positive thing if it is used by the children in the proper way. According to verdick.org  technology can be used to enhance learning for a child by things like building social skills and helping them learn faster. It could also help to get them to know their surroundings. In the long run technology impacts children in different ways depending on how it is used by them.

 

 

websites referred to :

1.http://www.useoftechnology.com/effects-technology-children/

2.http://verdick.org/child-development-and-the-internet/child-dev-pos

3. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/07/apps-for-babies_n_3721886.html

The Latest Music Platform is Taking Off

By Matthew Tulli 

Teenagers are always looking for ways to listen to music – from torrenting music off of illegal peer-to-peer sharing websites, like The Pirate Bay, to downloading music off of Youtube, with websites like www.youtube-mp3.org. But in recent years, the music industry had been changed by possibly the best legal music player available, called Spotify. Spotify is a free music app that can be downloaded for Windows, Mac, and even a Linux version, which is good for Penn Manor students, considering that our laptops run off of Linux. You can download Spotify onto your laptop by visiting the website, spotify.com.

Using Spotify, users can create playlists, follow favorite artists and friends to get recent activity, listen to Spotify Radio, and much more. Spotify users can either use the app for free with restrictions, pay $5 per month with fewer restrictions, or pay $10 per month with no restrictions. Some of these restrictions are listening with advertisements, only being able to play playlists on shuffle mode, not having access to Spotify Radio, and not being able to sync songs with iTunes.

Spotify has gained much success around the world in the past few years. In 2013, there were over 24 million active users, six million of which were paying subscribers. Also, Spotify pulled in over $1 billion dollars since its inception in 2008, and employs over 1,200 people worldwide. It has over 20 millions songs available at your fingertips, and over 20,000 songs are being released every day.

Basically, Spotify is a combination of Twitter, iTunes, and Pandora. Users can create playlists that other users can “follow” and listen to, and they can follow other users’ profiles. You can also see what your favorite artists are listening to. It’s basically a music-oriented social media website.

Personally, I think Spotify is the best music player right now. I have used Spotify Premium for a few months now, and it is definitely my favorite music player. I’m actually listening to Spotify as I type this article. With iTunes, you must pay for every song you want. With Spotify, any song you want to listen to is available with a quick search. It is what I use to listen to music all the time, and many of my friends do as well.

Sophomore and Spotify Premium subscriber Will Forrey says, “It’s much more convenient than iTunes. I usually add about 5 songs to my playlists every week, so its much cheaper to pay ten dollars than to pay $1.29 for every song you want to listen to.”

Freshman and Spotify Free user Alex Staub says, “When I want to listen to music I only use Spotify since it’s free and you can still listen to almost any song you want. I probably have about 2000 different songs on my playlists right now, and with iTunes, that would cost so much. I just prefer to use Spotify Free because even though its free, you still have almost any song you want in the app.”

If you’re wondering, you can’t just buy Premium and share your username and password with all of your friends. Only one device on a profile can listen at one time.

Overall, if you’re looking for a better way to listen to music, you have to try Spotify. I would definitely suggest it.

A chart showing what you can and can’t do with two different versions of Spotify. Image provided by Spotify.SpotifyFreevsPremium_689.jpg

Update or downgrade?

By Cassie Kreider

The Air Drop feature shows missed texts and alerts. It also has a 'Today' option, which shows what the calendar app would show someone. (Photo by Cassie Kreider)
The Air Drop feature shows missed texts and alerts. It also has a ‘Today’ option, which shows what the calendar app would show someone. (Photo by Cassie Kreider)

Apple’s new update, iOS 7, was launched in mid September to mixed reviews from Apple product consumers. Many of the new updates and features include a control screen that can be accessed by swiping upwards from any screen.

The control screen was added to make multitasking easier for the user, as it contains options to change the screens orientation, turn on or off Wifi and Bluetooth, and find things in the dark with the new flashlight. The Airdrop options, which can be accessed by swiping down from any screen, houses a calendar and missed alerts from texts and apps.

For more information on all the new changes and features, Apple’s website highlights everything iOS 7 gives its consumers, http://www.apple.com/ios/whats-new/.

Already many people have scrambled to download the update, only to be met with a loading bar that gives a waiting time anywhere from 30 minutes to 6 hours. Students at Penn Manor High School went crazy trying to install and download the update while in school. Many students complained about how long the process took even when they were hooked up to their home Wifi. More complaints and compliments were to follow.

The new look of the lock screen with the update. (Photo by Cassie Kreider)
The new look of the lock screen with the update. (Photo by Cassie Kreider)

“The way the update looks, especially the lock screen, looks neat.” said Courtney Mann, a senior at Penn Manor High School who owns an iPhone 4S.

On the other hand Senior MacKenzie Trimble finds the new look of the update to be, “childish looking.” She also points out that Apple may have borrowed their design from the Samsung Galaxy S4, which Trimble is an owner of. She continues with “On the Galaxy S4, when you hold down the home button, it shows what apps are running. To get rid of them, you slide the app to the right to stop it from running in the background. The iOS 7 update allows you to do that but the only difference is you swipe up.”

Trimble goes on to say she’s not a fan of how, “not everyone can get it (the update) if they have an older brand of Apple products,” which she doesn’t find fair.

What Trimble said is true, the iOS 7 update is only available for the fourth and fifth generation ipad, the ipad 2, ipad mini, fifth generation ipod, the iphone 4 and 4s, and the iphone 5. The update will come pre-installed with the iphone 5s and 5c.

Many consumers have complained about motion sickness with the new visual effects that came with iOS 7. What this means is, when the screen is tilted left or right, up or down, the apps and the background picture automatically adjust to this movement.

This feature can be turned off in the settings under general, then accessibility. Shutting off this feature will also save battery life. Along with a longer battery life, pictures will also be easier to reposition for backgrounds and lock screens when this feature is switched off.

The new control screen that can be accessed from any page. It controls a variety of features along with the screen orientation and wifi. (Photo by Cassie Kreider)
The new control screen that can be accessed from any page. It controls a variety of features along with the screen orientation and wifi. (Photo by Cassie Kreider)

One thing Mann said she liked was how the control panel (which can be accessed with a swipe upwards from any screen) makes things like accessing the flashlight, clock, calculator, screen orientation and brightness, easier.

Mann does not, however, like the new iTunes radio feature. In the music app there is an option for listeners to select certain genres or bands they wish to hear more music from, with options to like/dislike a song and adds after every few songs. Beware though, this service does take cellular data. Mann compared this feature’s functions to that of Pandora, a free app on iTunes that lets consumers control what they listen to.

Two additional updates have been put out to fix any bugs with the iOS 7 update.

Sony announces PS4

Sony announced the Playstation 4 at a recent press conference, but did not release any photos of the new device.
Sony announced the Playstation 4 at a recent press conference, but did not release any photos of the new system.

By Gabrielle Bauman

When Andrew House, president and group chief executive of Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. came on the stage, it was no secret what he was there for.

House was unveiling the Playstation 4, the latest in the line of PS gaming systems. But the press conference itself is leaving many with more questions than answers.

“I’m glad they’re building a new console after eight years. The hardware’s starting to look pretty old,” said Penn Manor senior Caleb Bolinger.

The game will be available by Christmas 2013, but no concrete release date has been announced yet. The press conference also failed to include pictures of the PS4, though the changes to the standard Playstation controller were highlighted.

These include a touchscreen, a blue LED light which is advertised to match your onscreen character, and a share button. The “Start” and “Select” buttons typically found in the center of the controller have been combined into a single “Options” button. However, the old Dualshock controllers used by the PS3 will not be compatible by the PS4.

The share button goes along with Sony’s plan to make gaming a more social experience. Video capture will be made easier with the PS4, and live streaming will attempt to make videogames similar to a spectator sport.

“I think the share button’s pretty gimmicky,” said Bolinger.

Sony also gave short presentations on some of the games that will be available with the PS4 launch, which included Killzone: Shadow Fall, Destiny (from the creators of Halo), and Driveclub.

The Playstation 4 will be a PC gaming console. According to the PC Magazine, “The system will run an x86-64 AMD Jaguar CPU with eight cores. It will also come with a 1.84 teraflop Radeon graphics processor and 8GB of RAM. Despite the increased focus on downloadable content, the 6xCAV Blu-ray drive stays. The system will also come with USB 3.0, Ethernet, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth, as well as the predictable HDMI, Analog AV out, and Digital Output.”

This is behind the current top gaming computers, but the difference is that while gaming computers become outdated quickly, consoles last for years. The Playstation 3 was put on shelves in November 2006, almost 8 years ago, and top titles are still being released on a regular basis like Beyond Two Souls, a motion capture game starring actress Ellen Paige.

When the PS3 was unveiled in 2006, SCE America head Kaz Hirai said, “The PlayStation 3 is going to be a console that’s going to be with you again for 10 years.” This will not be far from the truth by the time PS4 is released later this year.

Another highlight of the Sony press conference is the application of the cloud. Last year Sony paid $380 million for cloud based distribution company Gaikai. Gaikai CEO David Perry stated at the press conference that Sony was working on cloud based distribution for all their upcoming titles. The user will download the game from the cloud, and then play the full game as the rest is still downloading.

No wait times, no demos.

This may play into the market currently held by the cloud based distributor Stream, a realm over which it currently reigns supreme. EA attempted to topple it with Origin to no avail, but now Sony seems to want to get into the cloud action.

“Try for free and buy only the games you really love,” said Perry.

Bolinger commented on the success of Nintendo’s latest console, “It sucks for the Wii U that just came out…it’s got the specs of current generation consoles and now there’s a new one.”

The PS4 will be here by this holiday season, but there is no word on pricing or of what the actual console will look like.

Don’t worry — If it’s anything like its predecessors, it’ll just be a black box.

Penn Manor Rocket Club Soaring to Nationals

By Alicia Ygarza

Hard work has paid off.

The Penn Manor Rocket Club has been invited once again to the 2012 national competition.

The tenth Annual National Rocket Competition will be held May 12 in Manassas, Va.

Out of 680 teams across the country, 100 were chosen to participate in the competition, and six out of seven teams from Penn Manor made it. In fact, two of those six teams are middle school teams.

Penn Manor’s 2010 Rocket Club after winning internationals, from left, Brian Osmolinski, Brendan Stoeckl, Nate Bernhardt, Tyler Funk, Jordan Franssen. Courtesy of rocketryplanet.com

“I am always nervous [when going to nationals] but I’m definitely excited because it is the pinnacle of the rocket season.  These kids have worked very hard all year long and deserve a shot at the National Title,” said Brian Osmolinski, head adviser of the club.   

The club has been established for ten years, and has made it to nationals each year.

In 2010, the team even made it to the international competition, beating teams from England and France.

However, since the team did not make it to the international competition last year, one club member said she feels the club has been “forgotten” by the school and public.

“I wouldn’t say we’ve been forgotten. The chances of us going to internationals is very small, it’s an honor to go to nationals. It’s something to be proud of,” said Mark Raymond, a four year rocket club member. 

Before Raymond joined the club as a freshmen, he had experience building rockets as a boy scout.

“It was fun [building rockets] so I tried it in high school, and I liked it,” said Raymond.

Having fun is the main goal Osmolinski tries to instill within his program.

“My initial goals [for the club] were to have teams of students cooperatively build rockets for this competition, learn how rocketry works, and have fun doing it,” said Osmolinski.

But the day of nationals is more than just having fun, it’s about winning.

“My biggest fear is that a rocket explodes on the pad for the team’s one shot,” said Osmolinski.

For that reason, the club builds back-up rockets, to ensure they are prepared.

They are not only prepared with their supplies, they are prepared mentally.

“I tend to worry about particular details but I constantly remind myself that the rocket kids know what they are doing and make good decisions all the time.  It’s in their hands.  I have equipped them with all the tools they need. It’s up to them to make it happen,” stated Osmolinski.

The six teams that will be attending nationals are:

Team 1

Alex Cauler

Mark raymond

David Herr

Colby Sangrey

Jonathan Martin

Team 2

Eric Keefer

Austin Rineer

Adam Zangari

Ian Tahmasbi

Team 3

Maggie McClintock

Cate Shipley

Gabie Bauman

Chris Cuascut

Team 4

Andrew Lobos

Ben Thomas

Jack Battle

Chris Mummau

Team 5

Sam Cauler

Chris Knight

Zach Holsinger

Team 6

Shawn Stone

Jesse Stoner

Tom Sowers

Wyatt Shiffler

According to Osmolinski, the students are a bit nervous preparing for nationals, but they are also very excited.

They only have one shot, and hopefully they will soar.

Angry Birds Space Shooting For The Stars

By Dakota Jordan –

Space, the final frontier.  But for Angry Birds creator Rovio, space is a whole new horizon.

Angry Birds Space is the new title from the meteoric company and it’s showing the same popularity as their past titles, in the first three days after release ABS had already netted 10 million downloads.

ABS is the new high flying adventure which places you in the hands of six birds trying to rescue their eggs from the pigs, everything you’ve come to expect from Angry Birds except with on big difference, they’re in space.  And this isn’t just a simple re-skin of Angry Birds with a new space background, this takes Angry Birds to a whole new level utilizing small planetoids each with their own gravitational pull so instead of launching birds straight at a structure you may have to send your birds in an arc through two planets or even put them in centripetal orbit until they finally come crashing down.

The new game puts you in control of 6 birds, 4 returning and 2 new ones, the basic red bird, the tiny blue bird that can split into three, the large bird now colored green instead of red, and the black bird which explodes on impact. along with these 4 birds the two new birds include a purple one who is much like the yellow bird except this bird changes trajectory to there target and a blue bird who changes all blocks it makes contact with into ice.

The new Angry Birds has become a hit, with a marketing campaign so huge that even the seattle space needle was rigged up to look like a huge slingshot.

With all this mad success and with Rovio now having 4 hit Angry Bird games, three of which still have updates rolling out every couple of weeks the real question to ask is where The next golden egg will come from.

 

Tablet PCs, More then Just a Trend

By Chad Gates-

Take it with you, use it here, there, everywhere.

Portable electronic devices such as tablet PCs aren’t a new thing but the number of people, including students here, show it is a trend. In 1979, Sony unveiled their landmark product the “Walkman,” which allowed people to listen to their music wherever and whenever they want. Since then, these devices have grown into a prosperous market that has captured the public’s heart and wallet.

A tablet PC, or tablet computer, is a mobile computer that is larger then a smart-phone or PDA, but smaller then a laptop. Tablet PCs often use a modified version of a desktop operating system, (ex. Windows 7) integrated into a flat touch-screen that can be navigated using either your finger or digital stylus. Additionally, the keyboard appears on-screen, i.e. virtual keyboard.

But it wasn’t until recently that tablet PCs became popular. Microsoft released a precursor to the tablet PC in 2001, and unfortunately for Microsoft, it wasn’t successful.

Then in the April of 2010, Apple released the Ipad. They sold 14.8 million units and Ipads accounted for 75 percent of all tablet sales that year.

Saying that tablets are a trend of the era is a serious understatement, but they are much more than just a trend or fad. Tablet PCs have worked their way into many aspects of everyday life. These devices are becoming prominent within businesses and education. iPads, especially have been praised for their use in home-schooling. Tablet PCs are also an ideal substitute for computers and even laptops because of their greater portability and how they retain complex features of a laptop with the simplistic size and functionality of a smart-phone.

Although Apple’s iPad seems to be the most popular it is not the only tablet on the market. Many other developers of other electronic devices have joined the competition. Here is a list of other tablet PCs.

-RIM: (Makers of the Blackberry smart-phones) Blackberry Playbook

-Dell: Dell Streak 7

-HP: HP Touchpad

-Motorola: Motorola Xoom

-Samsung: Samsung Galaxy Tab

-Toshiba: Toshiba Tablet

Sales of tablets have skyrocketed.  Apple insider projects that tablets will outsell desktop PCs by 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Profits Boosted by iPhone Popularity – What’s up with the Stock Price?

By- Dakota Jordan

After a huge fourth quarter gain for Apple not even Siri can answer why stock prices are so low.

Apple, which has positioned itself as the biggest computer and software company in America, displayed an 118 percent jump in net income during the fourth quarter last year. That’s a total of a $13  billion increase, leading Apple to a total revenue of $46 billion for one quarter alone.

Not only are prices up but they are soaring. Monday Apple breached the $500 per share mark. Apple is now worth more than $469 billion, making it the most valuable public company in the world by a significant margin. Exxon Mobil, the second most valuable public company, which is worth approximately $400 billion after a weakening in that company’s stock price.

When the iPhone 4S was released in October, it was greeted by critics and consumers alike with very little enthusiasm as it lacked the razzle dazzle of the expected iPhone 5, but the iPhone, along with its communications assistant, Siri, had more than enough market power to carry Apple to another victory over smart phone competitors such as Google and Windows.

The phone sold over 37 million units in the third quarter, accounting for a large percentage of apples sales.

Then why are Apple stocks still below their estimated value?

“This isn’t supposed to be happening to a company of this size,” said David Rolfe, chief investment officer at Wedgewood Partners Inc., manages a $150 million fund where Apple is the largest component. “In our collective investment experience, none of us have ever seen this before.”

But investors want dividends and that’s holding Apple stocks back, Apple’s growing cash balance is having a huge overhang on the stock market, say experts, Apple is having trouble figuring out what to do with the money.

In the meantime, the iPhone’s popularity seems unstoppable.

“I love it!” said Penn Manor senior Maegan Kepperling about her new iPhone and her new best friend Siri. “It’s a huge help with everyday life.”

The other big problem is Apple is just getting too big to fast, analysts refuse to believe that a company that barely existed ten years ago is now the second most valuable company in the world. Second only to Exxon, there is just no way Apple can keep growing at a 73 percent annual rate, analysts insist.

“The mantra has been: Hey, a company this size just cannot keep growing at these unbelievable rates,” said Rolfe

But with a 118 percent rise since the holidays, even the experts might be wrong.

Online Privacy Comes to a Head

By Gabie Bauman, Joey Jackson and Patrick Simpson –

Piracy isn’t committed on the high seas anymore, but on the Web.

The Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA as it is known online, is an anti-piracy bill that proposes a law that would enable an owner of a certain piece of intellectual property to issue a court order to the domain host, warning that a certain website, if determined by the owner to be primarily made for copyright infringement, can and will be shut down. The court order can also block  the site from search engines and advertising services.

The bill also makes it a crime to stream copyrighted material, with

Late in 2011 microblogging giant Tumblr blacked out all text and images on their microblogs.

a penalty of up to five years imprisonment for ten infractions within ten months.

The fact that the potential take-down of websites could happen without due process has made many users very nervous. The wording of the bill is vague, leaving the question of what exactly makes a website copyright infringing open for interpretation.

Some of Penn Manor’s community could weigh in on the subject of the proposed bill,  “I think it was originally created for music and film, but it’s now more of a blanket law that covers more than they understand,” said Diane Bounds.

Users attempting to view Google's homepage on January 18 would be met by a black bar.

According to Penn Manor’s Technology Director Charlie Reisinger, this bill would harm the basic structure of the Internet, “SOPA and PIPA threaten creativity and expression on the Internet by granting corporations the ability to enforce widespread censorship via DNS blacklisting. Frivolous tampering with DNS betrays the Internet’s fundamental open technical architecture. Further, SOPA/PIPA legislation may significantly undermine next generation DNSSEC (Secure DNS) protocols. DNSSEC is a re-write of the DNS system and aims to harden the global Internet against fraud and attack. In essence, SOPA would force operators to redirect web requests away from legitimate site addresses, which in turn betrays the goals of enhanced DNS security.”

This bill has generated a firestorm of criticism from many of the giants of the Internet, for instance, Wikipedia.

Wikipedia chose January 18 to file its protest. Users wishing to know the capital of Colombia that day would be redirected to this message: “Imagine a World Without Free Knowledge” Wikipedia is protesting both the PROTECT-IP act and the SOPA bill, blacking out it’s entire website, only allowing the articles directly related to the contested bills to be viewed. As they always do, however, users of the information giant had already found the workarounds to the redirection and have circulated them online for those who really, really needed to use Wikipedia.

And they aren’t the only ones. Technology news site Wired.com also blacked out its headlines and images, though the black out wasn’t complete as when the user’s cursor hovers over the headline or image the blackout disappears. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, the web browser Firefox, and WordPress all have ongoing petitions and blacked out headings. The webcomic series xkcd, The Oatmeal, and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal also had blacked out their comics for January 18.

The response to Tumblr’s online petition was overwhelming.

Microblogging platform Tumblr blocked out it’s entire site in late November 2011. According to Tumblr, the petition garnered 87,834 phone calls to local representatives, the longest being 31 minutes long.

Google, instead of commemorating the birth of a famous author or artist, had chosen to make their image on January 18 to be simply a black bar. If the user should click on the black bar on the homepage, it links to a blog post asking users to sign their online petition against SOPA and its partner bill, the Protect-IP Act.

Not everyone was impressed by the Internet protests, however. “Some technology business interests are resorting to stunts that punish their users or turn them into their corporate pawns, rather than coming to the table to find solutions to a problem that all now seem to agree is very real and damaging,” said Senator Chris Dodd, the chairman of the Motion Picture Association of America in an article by the BBC.

Dodd is a good example of the parties in support of the bill: the MPAA, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and major pharmaceutical companies are all major proponents of SOPA. The intention of the bill is not some apocalyptic doom for the Internet, but to protect intellectual property and keep theft away.

What supporters of this bill fail to realize, however, is if the bill passes, the wrong people will be affected. The law would shut down pirates domain names, but not their IP address, so it would be as easy as setting up a new domain to continue stealing data. It is relatively easy for a website to set up mirror sites — or identical copies of the original site. During the height of the Wikileaks controversy, the leak site had almost 1300 mirror sites.

Congress held hearings on November 16 and December 15, 2011, but much has changed since then. On January 18 alone at least four senators in support of PIPA withdrew their support for the bill, releasing assorted statements agreeing that a bill carrying as much power as SOPA/PIPA does, needs to be revised.

Users attempting to log on Wikipedia to deface the article on Ernest Hemingway would be unpleasantly surprised.

Senator Matt Kirk said, “Freedom of speech is an inalienable right granted to each and every American, and the Internet has become the primary tool with which we utilize this right. The Internet empowers Americans to learn, create, innovate, and express their views. While we should protect American intellectual property, consumer safety and human rights, we should do so in a manner that specifically targets criminal activity. This extreme measure stifles First Amendment rights and Internet innovation. I stand with those who stand for freedom and oppose PROTECT IP, S.968, in its current form.

Since Congress’s latest talks, there has even been new suggestions on how to limit piracy. The OPEN act, drafted by Senator Ron Wyden, would instead take an alternative approach that is exactly as its name suggests, leaving the internet open to the public. Although it is far from perfect, it seems the OPEN act is much more plausible than it’s overly extreme counter-parts. In fact, the PROTECT-IP act is actually a rewrite of a bill sent to Congress earlier in the year, COICA or the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act .

The discussion on the Stop Online Piracy Act is set to resume February 2012. The PROTECT- IP Act will be voted on January 24, 2012.

With such a controversial bill, it’s hard to guess what may exactly come out of it, but whatever decision they make, let’s hope that it’s the one the people of the Internet want.

Brains Change After Violent Video Games

By Chris Fleming –

Playing violent video games might be fun, but a new study indicates it may not be harmless fun, after all.

For years now plenty of different researchers have been trying to analyze the affect of violent video games versus the brain. Finally, the researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis discovered signs through magnetic resonance imaging that the brain is affected, according to a published report in USAToday.

Some gamers who go to Penn Manor have seen similar results.

“Once I start playing a game I can notice that I get angry faster,” said Alex Sorce, senior at Penn Manor,” but I leave my anger at my Xbox once I turn it off.”

According to the study done in Chicago, researches took 22 healthy men ages 18-29 and split them up into groups of 11. One group was assigned to play a violent first person shooter game for 10 hours a day for one week and then not play at all the next week, while the other group was told not to play video games at all for both weeks.

After the first week every one got an MRI brain scan and were told to do specific tasks to see what changes took place. After the first week the group playing video games had less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe while doing emotional tasks and lower activation in the anterior cingulate cortex during counting tests compared to their results previous to video game playing and to the other group which did not play video games at all.

After the second week’s MRI scan took place, the group playing video games results were disturbing.

“The activation returned toward baseline but did not completely normalize. We don’t know how long the effect lasts for those who play longer,” said study co-author Dr. Vincent Mathews.

A well known violent video game, image coutesy of gallery.neoseeker.com

Yang Wang, a professor in radiology and imaging and lead author of the research done at Indiana University School of Medicine said, “These findings indicate that violent video game play has long-term effect on brain functioning.

“The part of the brain that the group that played video games changed in ” is involved in inhibition and emotional modulation,” said Mathews, “(Other researchers) have shown an increase in aggression after playing violent video games. We suspect our findings may be a physiological explanation for this.”

The Center for Successful Parenting supported this research, they argue that there should be less video games and other certain media that young children have access to that they don’t necessarily need , according to the USAToday story.

Mathews suggests to gamers that they should “be aware that playing violent video games has an effect on the way the brain functions and consider this when you choose how to spend your leisure time.”

According to a few students at Penn Manor, these results don’t match up to how they feel.

“Well of course I get angry sometimes when I play a certain violent video game like if I lose or something, but I doubt that it really affects the rest of my day, or life, according to the long term effects you said it gives us gamers,” said Bob Warfel.

“I’ve been playing street fighter for a long time, I haven’t noticed any changes yet. I do get mad sometimes but it’s over dumb stuff so I feel like it doesn’t really effect me at all because it’s just a game,” said Brian Le.

Many recommended a new study be done again but on a larger scale than just two weeks and with a larger group or people.