Hundreds of Americans, bystanders injured playing video games
Mostly normal sofa-spuds, too, not Wii jiggy-gamers
Shocking news from America today, as it has been revealed by paediatricians there that playing video games is tremendously damaging to that nation's youth: not so much in terms of warping fragile little minds with scenes of graphic violence'n'nookie but in terms of actual, physical injuries.
No, really. According to research which will be presented later today at a paediatrics conference in San Francisco, the playing of video games can cause serious injuries both to players and bystanders.
According to the US National Electronic Injury Surveillance System, Americans sustained 696 "video game-related injuries" during the period 2004 to 2009. Some 92 of these were from Wii-style interactive capering-style setups, but somehow the remaining 604 wounds were sustained in more traditional couch-potato style scenarios. The mean age of those injured was 16.5, indicating that vidgame injuries are primarily a youth issue, though apparently individuals as old as 86 took some console-related damage.
According to a statement issued today by the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), "bystander injuries occurred in both the interactive and the traditional groups with significantly more bystander injuries in the interactive group".
Official advice from study lead author Patrick O'Toole is that the horrific games-related bloodbath can only be stemmed by harsh measures.
"Children under the age of 10 should be supervised while video games are being played to prevent bystander injuries," says the doc. ®
COMMENTS
When I were a lad
I would react to that sodding Sagat or M Bison defeating me soundly for the nth time in a row by throwing the Joypad at the floor in disgust.
Never once was I or the joypad injured, nor the occassional friend, little brother or parent who also happened to be in the room.
I do recall a time where my much older cousin reacting to being defeated by his 16 year old relative by twirling the joypad on its cable sling style and firing it against the wall, where it shattered into a million pieces.
One of the pieces bounced off me, but I obviously forgot to inform anyone about this injury or I, too, could have been a statistic.
Luckily, I'm a bit more precious about my PS3 joypads than I was about my Megadrive ones and they have never once been in danger of being thrown at the wall. Perhaps I'm just a but calmer in my old age or perhaps it's just the fact that despite having to repeat that bloody mission in Assassin's Creed 2 for the gazillionth time, I appreciate the expense to replace it these days.
There was probably some sort of moral in that spiel, but I can't be arsed looking for it now.
>bystander injuries
Hmm, if the kids are supervised, doesn't that mean more bystanders and thus a higher risk f bystander injuries?
So...
"Americans sustained 696 "video game-related injuries" during the period 2004 to 2009."
Out of a population of 250,000,000 less than 700 injuries occurred in 5 years.
And this is a ****PROBLEM****?
How about....
no, what's the point.
I bet there's been more Paris related injuries in that time frame. Won't someone think of Paris?
ridiculous
696 people injured over a 5 year time span.
Maybe they should look into the number of breakfast related injuries or stair climbing injuries and make sure that there is supervision for all these dangerous activities too.
"tremendously damaging"???
So... 696 injuries. Over five years. In a country of over three hundred million.
Not so "tremendous," I'd say. Literally less than a one in a million chance...
