Michigan Grandfather Says Videogames Cause Deformities
There are dozens of arguments that have been made by the anti video game camp. Some point nervous fingers at any tenuous link between video games and real world tragedies, others blame them for obesity or the short attention spans of current youth. A Michigan grandfather is accusing video game controllers of seriously warping the hands of children due to their soft bones being unable to handle the ’strong repeating forces’ inflicted upon a child’s hands while gaming.
He says that children under eight shouldn’t be allowed to play video games and that children under five shouldn’t be allowed to use crayons. As you might expect, he hasn’t gotten much support for his movement yet, possibly because in a display of incredibly paranoid thinking he accuses the government of being persuaded by the video games industry to drop a bill designating money for the study of children’s health, including the effects of video gaming.
Last I had checked the US economy was suffering and every government body was operating with lower budgets and while I’m sure billions of dollars are still being devoted to research, children’s hands likely isn’t high on the list of priorities. If there’s really an issue with children playing too many video games and injuring themselves, we should get them back out doing safe hobbies like climbing trees and playing football. Nobody ever got hurt doing that.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:49 pm
There are a lot of things that are less than ideal for young children–they say you shouldn’t even let them watch TV before they’re like four–but sometimes you do them anyway. And in fact, trying too hard to keep harmful things away from children does more harm than good–being too clean, for example, doesn’t allow a child’s immune system to develop properly because it never gets exposed to common pathogens that we take out every day.