- This news story is archived and is closed to comments now -

So effectively, gaming is MMR's replacement as the autism trait "trigger", is that it?

This could be intriguing, though. Something most kids do being linked to something which most people fear and very few understand. Could cause division among people.

Uhhhmmm, there isn't a 'trigger' for Aspergers or autism in general. You're born with it >_>

All they're saying, is they display similar traits. It even says at the top of this article that there isn't any correlation, no cause-and-effect (as you seem to be getting at)....

They don't know whether or not a person is born with it. The MMR scare happened because it was suggested that the vaccine triggered the condition.

I'm not saying that I consider this to be based on cause-and-effect. But a lot of people panic as soon as the "debilitating" condition is mentioned and make their own links to satisfy their hunger for fear, whether they acknowledge it or not.

HAI GUYZ! Ima BEIG SCEINTEEST! I AM GONNA MKE A STDY OF DA PEEPOLE UND MKES GAMIES LOOKS BAED!

"that the closer the players got to addiction the more likely they were to display negative personality traits."

Isn't it like that with ANY addiction? Not just video games.

Yes, addiction generally brings out negative personality traits, but the focus here (if you read the entire article) is on the THREE specific traits that are shared with Aspergers.

Yay! A relatively new member! - Atsumi


Right. Umm... Autism. New study. Videogame haters. Yada yada. Damn scientists.

And now people everywhere will start thinking that playing video games is horrible an dangerous because you could end up autistic -.-

A major environmental trigger for autism has already been identified. Michael Waldman's research (2006)[1] has proven that autism is strongly correlated with early childhood exposure to television. Such exposure, like autism, has risen dramatically in recent years. These results do not prove that TV causes autism, but that early exposure to TV seriously increases the risk of autism.

In scientific terms, Waldman's research is highly convincing. Nevertheless is has been ignored or dismissed. Our culture is so enamored of television and the computer that it resists the accumulating evidence that early over-exposure leads to behavioral problems in children. Parents of autistic children dread feeling blamed and so resist the possibility that their use of television, DVDs, or computer games may inadvertently have triggered autism.

Both the public and many researchers have been misled by the evidence that autism is correlated with genetic factors (Time, 2006)[2]. In fact the genetic evidence shows that genetic factors may predispose an infant to autism, but that genetic factors alone do not cause autism. For example, when one genetically identical twin is autistic, the other is usually not autistic.

Research on autism is often flawed by mechanistic assumptions about the brain. It is now well-established - but not widely understood, even amongst biologists and medical professionals - that biological structures are not mechanisms but dynamic systems. Mechanisms miss-function when a component is faulty - hence people expect a faulty gene to cause autism. Dynamic systems organize themselves with extensive input from the environment. These issues are explained more fully in an on-line article in Dynamical Psychology (2004)[3].

Meanwhile, Waldman's results continue to be highly convincing. They deserve to be taken very seriously indeed.

(My own scientific experience was as a molecular biologist at Duke University, M.I.T., and the M.R.C. Laboratories in Cambridge, England.)

Sincerely,
Maxson J. McDowell PhD, LMSW, LP

(1) www.johnson.cornell.edu/faculty/profiles/wald...
(2) www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,15486...
(3) www.goertzel.org/dynapsyc/2004/Autism04.htm

Well, I AM autistic and I DO have Asperger. And it's not really easier to communicate towards other people on the Internet than in real life: there are stupid people everywhere.

man i hear all these anti-video games crap all the time...why don't they *bleep* for a change?
there are far worse addictions than video game addictions (ciggaretes, drugs, cell phones etc...) so why don't you guys spend your time with them and leave the gaming comunity alone?
i have to agree that playing games all the time can do you bad things...but enough is enough already, we know it, as we know that drugs and ciggaretes can kill you but who's actually gonna try to overcome his/her addiction just because of some research?

Idunno, this doesn't seem so anti-video games for once, more a comparison of video game addicts and autistic people in general...although in general might be a bit weird, since I don't think there's a 'general' for autism.

I do agree that autism is unlikely to be a genetic condition, and I agree with Mr. (Doctor? Professor? I'm sorry, I'm not sure what the correct form of address is) McDowell and Mr. Waldman about television influencing it. I've always said that the cases of games inspiring real crime usually involve the person's mental state blurs the lines between fiction and reality - neither the game's content or the person's mental condition is the exclusive "trigger". That doesn't excuse them, but I think there's often something mind-related going on. So it shouldn't be a great surprise that this link has been established. Whether the majority who are afraid and ignorant of autism see it that way remains to be seen, though.

Posting this article, I knew there'd be people who saw it as "just another anti-video game story" but honestly, that's not how I see it.

The doctors did explain that spectrum on which they place people, used to measure social normalcy. They mentioned that sometimes, people in different careers or fields will measure along different ends, but there is no extreme (because that would be considered a "disorder" like autism). What they said is that these quirks they see in those severely addicted to video games would put the subjects much further down the scale, and much closer to autism than any naturally displayed personality traits.

Exactly. It makes sense. The problem, and this is the public's problem, not a fault of the people who research these things, is that the public will be unlikely to see it that way, because they've brainwashed their own minds into the idea that an autistic person is an undesirable, useless social outcast with which they must not - and simply cannot - have any element in common with.

@RabidChinaGirl

I didn't see it as an antigame article.

Just information supported by scientific facts.

Well, Galacticdramon. If an uninformed teacher shows up in my school, in which blind people and deaf people take classes also, they're not really often taken seriously by the students at first.
It's just a bit of an experience you must gain gradually, if more people are prepared to do this, we'll have less misunderstandings about it in the future. Hopefully, that is.

@Atsumi

Yeah, but other readers might see it differently. :]

I have no real issue with the study itself. But I do take issue with the fact that they went and tried to link something with gaming. By that I mean, making it seem like game addicts are just like People with Asperger's. I pisses me off. So the underlying cause here is that they wanted to make games look bad.

To clarify my post, I didn't mean I saw it as anti-video game, I meant that most other people would.

I think I'll clarify mine, as well. The public fear autism, that is from my experience an undeniable fact. Just like they fear AD/HD, lesser-known similar conditions and any other so-called "behavioural condition". Usually they like to think that they and their family and friends have and must have nothing to do with the condition. Some people react to the news that someone in their family has the condition as if the child has just been killed in a car crash (you'll have to take my word on this, but I've seen both reactions, and sometimes they're not dissimilar).

What's interesting here is that it's not some kind of environmental factor or something otherwise beyond a person's control, it's something a person actively chooses to do being linked, even if it's not being called a cause or trigger. So the public reaction to that, when they establish their own links and bring their own misconceived ideas to the table, might well be quite different to previously.

And in defence of the study, iamjoe56, the study was based around a perceived link of whatever sort between gaming addicts and autistic people. To perform the study without attempting to study that link would be impossible. You can't compare two cars and not take one of them into the study; similar logic applies.

Having to live with Asperger's Syndrome, I know and understand first-hand that there is a percentage of the population-not just in the United States but around the world-that fears autism, ADHD, and other learning disabilities that I didn't mention.

When I found out what I was diagnosed with, I was 10 or 11, and to be honest I didn't even know what it was. But what I didn't understand at the time is why my mom was so upset over the news.
But as time grew on, I eventually gained an understanding of what it was. Yet myself nor my family in general or my parents in particular could figure out the trigger, which I think varies from person-to-person. Video games may not have caused my Asperger's, but they heightened my reflexes and helped me to pay attention to details. I can be pretty sure that I was born with Asperger's; this was destined to happen.
I made a conscious choice to not tell people [that I have Asperger's Syndrome] because I was not sure of how they would react. Some, like my girlfriend and by best friend from high school, have been very understanding and accepting; others have turned the other way and actually teased me because of my so-called handicap. To make matters worse, I have had supervisors at previous jobs (not my current one, mind you) make my life tougher because of my disability; specifically I think I was released from my first job and not brought back to a summer job because both supervisors were not accepting of the fact that I had A.S. The first supervisor no longer works at the first job, and the owner has ironically come under scrutiny from that company's HQ, whereas the second supervisor got promoted to an H.R. job in the same store despite having a reputed history of poorly treating employees that have various disabilities.
Some have gone as far as to call each of those two cases (and some incidents during my years of grade schooling K-12) discrimination, which is an unfortunate downside of having any learning disability.

But what must be remembered is in this brief poem:
When it comes to people
It is NOT in the disability But the ability
In which one is to be judged.

-LP_04

- This news story is archived and is closed to new comments now -