Os jogos/vídeo causam depressão nos adolescentes?

OBSERVANDO

The debate about the effects of video gaming on young minds continues, fed by new studies that find links with depression. There ensues the usual argument over causality (Did excessive gaming cause depression? Or do mentally unstable teens spend more time on gaming?) with the industry asking, “Why pick on us?”

Here are the latest results:

The results are discouraging. The latest study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, followed 3,000 students in the third, fourth, seventh and eighth grades in Singapore. Children who were more impulsive and less comfortable with other children spent more time playing video games, the study found. Two years later, these heavy gamers, who played an average of 31 hours a week, compared with 19 hours a week for other students, were more likely to suffer from depression, anxiety and social phobias. They were also more likely to see their grades in school drop and have worse relationships with their parents.

The findings come on the heels of another study, released last fall, that followed more than 1,000 healthy Chinese teenagers ages 13 to 18. Those who used the Internet excessively were more than twice as likely as the others to be depressed nine months later; most of the Internet use was for video games, the researchers said. That study was published in The Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine.

Douglas A. Gentile, a psychology professor at Iowa State University who did the first study, makes a subtle distinction. He does not say that video games cause depression; rather, that “pathological gaming” tends to go with a range of mental health problems and contributes to them -- independently.

In any case he says that parents should regulate their children’s use of video games and trust their instincts on what constitutes excessive use -- something the gaming industry appears to agree on.

Carolyn Moynihan, 2011.01.20 - MERCATORNET