Study: Too many video games may sap attention span

Parents who believe that playing video games is less harmful to their kids' attention spans than watching TV may want to reconsider -- and unplug the Xbox. Video games can sap a child's attention just as much as the tube, a new study suggests.
Elementary school children who play video games more than two hours a day are 67 percent more likely than their peers who play less to have greater-than-average attention problems, according to the study, which appears in the journal Pediatrics.
Playing video games and watching TV appear to have roughly the same link to attention problems, even though video games are considered a less passive activity, the researchers say.
"Video games aren't less likely than television to be related to attention problems," says the lead author of the study, Edward Swing, a doctoral candidate in the department of psychology at Iowa State University, in Ames. "They were at least as strong as television at predicting attention problems."
However, the study doesn't prove that video games directly cause attention problems. It could be that kids who have short attention spans to begin with might be more likely to pick up a joystick than a book, for instance.
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The relationship between video games and attention is probably a two-way street, Swing says. "It wouldn't surprise me if children who have attention problems are attracted to these media, and that these media increase the attention problems," he says.
Swing and his colleagues followed more than 1,300 children in the third, fourth, and fifth grades for a little over a year. The researchers asked both the kids and their parents to estimate how many hours per week the kids spent watching TV and playing video games, and they assessed the children's attention spans by surveying their schoolteachers.
Previous studies have examined the effect of TV or video games on attention problems, but not both. By looking at video-game use as well as TV watching, Swing and his colleagues were able to show for the first time that the two activities have a similar relationship to attention problems.
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C. Shawn Green, Ph.D, a postdoctoral associate in the department of psychology at the University of Minnesota, in Minneapolis, points out that the study doesn't distinguish between the type of attention required to excel at a video game and that required to excel in school.
"A child who is capable of playing a video game for hours on end obviously does not have a global problem with paying attention," says Green, who has researched video games but was not involved in the current study. "The question, then, is why are they able to pay attention to a game but not in school? What expectancies have the games set up that aren't being delivered in a school setting?"
Experts have suggested that modern TV shows are so exciting and fast paced that they make reading and schoolwork seem dull by comparison, and the same may be true for video games, the study notes.
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It's unclear from this study whether that's the case, however, because Swing and his colleagues didn't look at the specific games the kids were playing.
"We weren't able to break [the games] down by educational versus non-educational or nonviolent versus violent," says Swing, adding that the impact different types of games may have on attention is a ripe area for future research.
The study also suggests that young kids aren't the only ones whose attention spans may be affected by video games.
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In addition to surveying the elementary school kids, the researchers asked 210 college students about their TV and video-game use and how they felt it affected their attention. The students who logged more than two hours of TV and video games a day were about twice as likely to have attention problems, the researchers found.
These attention problems later in life may be the result of "something cumulative that builds up over a lifetime" or "something that happens early in life at some critical period and then stays with you," Swing says. "Either way, there are implications that would lead us to want to reduce television and video games in childhood."
The American Academy of Pediatrics, the leading professional organization for pediatricians and the publisher of Pediatrics, recommends that parents limit all "screen time" (including video and computer games) to less than two hours per day.
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For his part, Green says that how much time kids spend playing video games should be a matter of common sense and parental judgment.

"A hard boundary, such as two hours, is completely arbitrary," he says. "Children are individuals, and what makes sense for one won't necessarily work for another."

Source:CNN

US affirms Russia ties amid spy row

The US secretary of state has indicated that allegations of a Russian spy ring operating in the US will not harm relations between the two countries.
Speaking in Ukraine on Friday, Hillary Clinton declined to comment directly on the investigation into the alleged spy ring but said: "We're committed to building a new and positive relation with Russia. We're looking toward the future."
Her comments came as US prosecutors claimed that two more suspects in the alleged spy ring have admitted to being Russian citizens living in the US under false identities.
The defendants known as Michael Zottoli and Patricia Mills told the authorities after their arrest that their real names were Mikhail Kutzik and Natalia Pereverzeva, prosecutors said in a court filing on Friday.
The two were arrested in Arlington, Virginia, where they had been living as a married couple with two young children.
According to court documents, Zottoli had claimed to be a US citizen, married to Mills, a purported Canadian citizen.

The two were charged with conspiracy to commit money laundering, and along with a third defendant, Mikhail Semenko, were charged with being foreign agents.
All three remained jailed after waiving their right to a detention or bail hearing during brief appearances in federal court on Friday.
They were among 10 people arrested and charged this week. Six other defendants had already appeared in US courts, and one was granted bail that will include electronic monitoring and home detention.
In Friday's court filing, prosecutors said Zottoli and Mills had $100,000 in cash and phony passports and other identity documents stashed in safe deposit boxes.
Semenko, who was in the US on a work visa, is not alleged to have used a false identity. But prosecutors said the FBI found computer equipment "of the type capable of being used for ... clandestine communications" in his home and a second apartment that he recently leased.
Cyprus disappearance
Meanwhile in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, Loucas Louca, the justice minister, said it was unlikely that Christopher Metsos – the alleged 11th member of the spy ring – would be apprehended on the Mediterranean island because he was believed to have fled.

Metsos, 54, is wanted in the US on charges that he supplied money to the spy ring. He disappeared on Wednesday after a court in Cyprus – an island with close ties to Russia - freed him on bail.
Louca strongly defended Cypriot authorities' handling of the case, which left the government stung by rumours that it was complicit in Metsos' disappearance.
"If we wanted him [Metsos] to evade, as we have been accused, we wouldn't have tried as hard to arrest him in the first place," he said.
Russia's foreign ministry said that it had no reason to believe Metsos was in Russia.
"I do not have such information. You're knocking on the wrong door," Igor Lyakin-Frolov, a spokesman for the ministry, said

Source: WN

Horses stampede at parade, injuring 24

An Independence Day parade in Iowa descended into chaos when when two horses went out of control and took their wagon with them, running into crowds of celebrants and leaving more than 20 people injured, according to authorities.
It happened at the Bellevue Heritage Day Celebration Parade in Bellevue, Iowa, on the state's eastern border with Illinois.
Fire Chief Chris Rowling told CNN that emergency officials responded to a call that came in just before noon, about a "mass casualty incident" at the annual Fourth of July parade.
Rowling said two horses pulling a wagon went out of control along the parade route. They ran with the wagon for about six blocks, hitting numerous children and adults.
A total of 24 people were taken to hospitals in the area. The injuries ranged from abrasions to fractures to collapsed lungs. Five people were in critical condition and five were in severe condition, while 14 people had injuries considered minor, Rowling said.
He added that the injured ranged in age from 2 to 62, with more than half being under the age of 12.
Rowling said one of the horses hitched to the wagon dislodged the bridle of the other horse, compromising the driver's ability to control them both.
Iowa Gov. Chet Culver issued a statement on the incident, saying his "thoughts and prayers" were with the injured and the town.

"I am especially saddened because the accident occurred during the events celebrating Independence Day, which is a day that should be filled with pride and joy for all Iowans and Americans," Culber said, adding that he thanked the spectators who aided the injured, and the emergency responders at the scene.

Source: CNN