Children: Being Outdoors vs. Nearsightedness?

[lpetrich]

Another Reason to Send Kids Outside: It’s Good for Their Eyes

It’s hard to argue with the idea that getting kids outside is important for their health. The American Academy of Pediatrics encourages doctors to “write a prescription for play” and says that outdoor play in particular is important for “motor, cognitive, social, and linguistic” skills, as well as exercise. But another important benefit of outdoor play is mostly ignored: what it can do for kids’ eyesight.

Nearsightedness has become more common over the past few decades, both in the United States and elsewhere, and scientists aren’t sure why. But they do know that sending your kid outside can help prevent it.

...
How exactly being outdoors protects kids’ eyes is a bit of a mystery. The effect seems to be independent of how much time kids spend on near work — it’s not just that more time outside equals less time reading. But the answer might be as simple as the amount of light kids get, Berntsen says. Or it might have to do with having distant objects in their field of vision, instead of being indoors, where everything is at close range. Another hypothesis involves dopamine: Bright light causes the release of dopamine in the eye, which may tell the eyeball to stop growing.

I decided to check this article's assertions, and I found:
A New AMA Policy – More Time Spent Outdoors May Reduce the Risk of Kids’ Nearsightedness
Outdoor Activity Protects Against Childhood Myopia—Let the Sun Shine In | Ophthalmology | JAMA Pediatrics | JAMA Network

 

[steve_bank]

Eyes focus using muscles. Sounds like a form of atrophy. Environment stimulates brain growth.

Baseball, basketball, T ball, and the rest are probably still the best for kids. The video game industry says games develop had eye coordination. I'd say that is nonsense.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Eyes focus using muscles. Sounds like a form of atrophy. Environment stimulates brain growth.

Baseball, basketball, T ball, and the rest are probably still the best for kids. The video game industry says games develop had eye coordination. I'd say that is nonsense.

There's little question that it helps. That doesn't mean that all that time inside doesn't have downsides also.

And I don't think atrophy is the right word--it's a failure to develop more than a loss of what was developed.

 

[Gun Nut]

Eyes focus using muscles. Sounds like a form of atrophy. Environment stimulates brain growth.

Baseball, basketball, T ball, and the rest are probably still the best for kids. The video game industry says games develop had eye coordination. I'd say that is nonsense.

just as much nonsense as the claim that reading books increases literacy. Video games promote problem solving, team work, and eye hand coordination. The last bit more important now-a-days with modern control systems. "joysticks" are not just for games - they are for science, industry, and adjusting your side-view mirrors. That said, it is absolutely true that your eyes need to focus at different distances to remain healthy.... just like needing to stand up once in a while to prevent atrophy of your heart.
It's pretty much a no-brainer to understand that when it comes to your body, you must use it or lose it.

 

[steve_bank]

Video games are like masturbation. Instant gratification with no risk. Fail and reset the game.

You do not learn problem solving with video games, you learn conditioned responses.

Myself and other engineers in my generation have observed a general decline in independent problem solving in new grads.

Baseball requires situational awareness in space, what is going on around you, physical conditioning, and hand eye coordination in space. Video games give none of that.

Games have been linked to short attention spans in kids. Real world problems are worked over time.

 

[Gun Nut]

Video games are like masturbation. Instant gratification with no risk. Fail and reset the game.

such games exist, sure. but they are not very successful outside of the "burning time" genre. In fact, the very core principle of any successful and good video game is a balance between risk and reward... learning that balance, and applying it to strategy and play style. This first statement of yours is highly ironic... opposite of the very foundation of game theory... not even just video games... this is universal.

You do not learn problem solving with video games, you learn conditioned responses.

Sure you do. That is like saying you don't learn science with books... the books in the fiction section. All video games are not cut from the same cloth and neither are any other media.

Baseball requires situational awareness in space, what is going on around you, physical conditioning, and hand eye coordination in space. Video games give none of that.

I was at a little league game just the other day. It was just a bunch of children standing around a field with one kid in the middle throwing a ball into the dirt over and over again.
Baseball is just a stupid waste of everyone's time... no one is actually DOING anything at all.
Also, VR games are spacial, tactile, and highly immersive now-a-days.

Games have been linked to short attention spans in kids. Real world problems are worked over time.

video games or worked on over time. Games like tic tac toe might apply to your biased view of all video games, based on... what? Angry Birds?

There certainly is a segment a mindless video game

Certainly. And a segment of mindless and pointless sports. And a segment of useless and time wasting books... and movies... and art that makes you go "meh". sometimes it rains out, making "going out to play" a really stupid idea.

 

[steve_bank]

That is funny. Little League is for giving kids experience in real world team activity, leadership, and developing physical skills.

Playing baseball is harder than you may think. Same with soccer or tennis.

Kids who's brains are forming with experience are adopting to an illusion instead of reality. No matter how much video baseball you play, you will not learn the hand eye coordination to catch or hit a ball.

Sophisticated graphics and twists and turns do not change anything. The last video gane I played was in the early 80s. Today they would still bore me to tears. Learning, reading, growing in knowledge is the nest entertainment there is. It has always been so.

I'd always rather pick up a text and work problems than play video games. Video games require little effort and give you little in return for the time you spend.

Average people used to do math problems for fun. Crossword puzzles. Scrabble and Monopoly in retrospect were important for me as a kid. Model building. Construction toys. No video game can provide that.

Video games for kids are pacifiers. For adults mindless escape. A substitute for real completive activity.

Since the late 90s the DOD has been reporting that the major of young adults in the case of a national emergency and general call up are mentally and physically unfit for service. That says something.

 

[Gun Nut]

The last video gane I played was in the early 80s

Then you have no foundation to comment. It's like your discussing the leather helmets that football players wear.

And you can play all the baseball in the world and it will never teach you the fine motor control needed to manipulate a robotic arm with a joystick, or the spacial relationships skill needed to navigate a complex set of hallways... or how to read.... or how to use a hammer to drive a nail. Or how to drive. Baseball is useless.

Since the late 90s the DOD has been reporting that the major of young adults in the case of a national emergency and general call up are mentally and physically unfit for service. That says something

The irony in your posts deepen! Since the 2000's, the DoD has been explicitly seeking people with extensive video game experience to operate drones and other modern day equipment.... because they have the skills the military needs today.

Your point of view on this topic is informed by terribly outdated information that it seems you have not been interested in updating (which is fine - you just don't have a valuable opinion on this particular topic, is all).

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Interesting that spending time outside would help prevent near-sighted issues.

That is funny. Little League is for giving kids experience in real world team activity, leadership, and developing physical skills.

You misspelled soccer or hockey or basketball.

Kids who's brains are forming with experience are adopting to an illusion instead of reality. No matter how much video baseball you play, you will not learn the hand eye coordination to catch or hit a ball.

Actually FX3 Pinball is actually pretty darn good at modeling the real thing.

Sophisticated graphics and twists and turns do not change anything. The last video gane I played was in the early 80s. Today they would still bore me to tears. Learning, reading, growing in knowledge is the nest entertainment there is. It has always been so.

Are we talking about video games and coordination or how you feel about video games? Regardless, I think it helps develop some hand-eye coordination. I wouldn't (and I doubt many would) suggest it is enough for a kid to just play video games.

Video games for kids are pacifiers. For adults mindless escape. A substitute for real completive activity.

Yeah... and its fun. Like hiking or going to the zoo.

Since the late 90s the DOD has been reporting that the major of young adults in the case of a national emergency and general call up are mentally and physically unfit for service. That says something.

It says those that are fit for service are doing other things.

 

[ronburgundy]

Video games promote problem solving, team work, and eye hand coordination.

Hey, Do have a reference showing causal impact of gaming on actual hand-eye coordination in non-virtual environments? IOW, does it make a person better at catch or hitting an actual baseball?

All the studies I can find only measure a very specific and narrow type of hand-eye coordination, namely in the same 2-D computer gaming context as the games themselves. IOW, playing one game makes you better at other computer games. There is a critical difference between the type of coordination there versus the "real world". With a computer game, you are not actually coordinating your hand movements toward the visual object. Rather you are making tiny finger movements on a different plane where the direction does not correspond to the actual direction of the object in the visual field. The parts of the motor cortex involved are different for "catching a ball" in a computer game vs. catching and actual ball coming at you. So, it's plausible that gaming has either no or even negative impact on hand-eye coordination outside of virtual environments.

 

[skepticalbip]

The last video gane I played was in the early 80s

Then you have no foundation to comment. It's like your discussing the leather helmets that football players wear.

And you can play all the baseball in the world and it will never teach you the fine motor control needed to manipulate a robotic arm with a joystick, or the spacial relationships skill needed to navigate a complex set of hallways... or how to read.... or how to use a hammer to drive a nail. Or how to drive. Baseball is useless.

Since the late 90s the DOD has been reporting that the major of young adults in the case of a national emergency and general call up are mentally and physically unfit for service. That says something

The irony in your posts deepen! Since the 2000's, the DoD has been explicitly seeking people with extensive video game experience to operate drones and other modern day equipment.... because they have the skills the military needs today.

Your point of view on this topic is informed by terribly outdated information that it seems you have not been interested in updating (which is fine - you just don't have a valuable opinion on this particular topic, is all).

It is true that the military has found that video gamers are good at flying and controlling drones. However, only a minute percentage of military personnel are sitting at consoles flying drones. Gaming does nothing for preparing military personnel to navigate through jungles, hike through rugged terrain with sixty to eighty pounds of gear on their back, actually maintain aim and fire a real weapon, interact with and train local militias, etc.

 

[Gun Nut]

Video games promote problem solving, team work, and eye hand coordination.

Hey, Do have a reference showing causal impact of gaming on actual hand-eye coordination in non-virtual environments? IOW, does it make a person better at catch or hitting an actual baseball?

All the studies I can find only measure a very specific and narrow type of hand-eye coordination, namely in the same 2-D computer gaming context as the games themselves. IOW, playing one game makes you better at other computer games. There is a critical difference between the type of coordination there versus the "real world". With a computer game, you are not actually coordinating your hand movements toward the visual object. Rather you are making tiny finger movements on a different plane where the direction does not correspond to the actual direction of the object in the visual field. The parts of the motor cortex involved are different for "catching a ball" in a computer game vs. catching and actual ball coming at you. So, it's plausible that gaming has either no or even negative impact on hand-eye coordination outside of virtual environments.

True, if we ignore the entire genre of VR gaming... but that is fine to ignore since it is not so prevalent yet.

Just like playing baseball fails to properly prepare you with the coordination and skills associated with getting any job whatsoever... or playing any other game, for that matter, whatsoever. Learning to move an analog controller helps you... wait for it.... learn to move an analog controller.

List for me the professions that baseball prepare you for, or any skill that can be used outside the diamond, and for each one, I will list 10 professions that a video game of my choosing prepare you for. There may be overlap.
The game itself teaches the other things I have been mentioning.. except for crap games.. like how crap books don't teach you anything either.

 

[Gun Nut]

Then you have no foundation to comment. It's like your discussing the leather helmets that football players wear.

And you can play all the baseball in the world and it will never teach you the fine motor control needed to manipulate a robotic arm with a joystick, or the spacial relationships skill needed to navigate a complex set of hallways... or how to read.... or how to use a hammer to drive a nail. Or how to drive. Baseball is useless.



The irony in your posts deepen! Since the 2000's, the DoD has been explicitly seeking people with extensive video game experience to operate drones and other modern day equipment.... because they have the skills the military needs today.

Your point of view on this topic is informed by terribly outdated information that it seems you have not been interested in updating (which is fine - you just don't have a valuable opinion on this particular topic, is all).

It is true that the military has found that video gamers are good at flying and controlling drones. However, only a minute percentage of military personnel are sitting at consoles flying drones. Gaming does nothing for preparing military personnel to navigate through jungles, hike through rugged terrain with sixty to eighty pounds of gear on their back, actually maintain aim and fire a real weapon, interact with and train local militias, etc.

... true... but how does that minute number compare with the number of people chosen for their experience with playing in the sprinklers on the front lawn, or swinging a stick at a ball?

Look, I am not saying that people should do nothing but play video games... I am just saying that video games are not the devil. Many of the most successful and popular games are that way exactly because they require the development of skills ( that may or may not be useful in your life, depending on what you end up doing)... you never know... you may actually become a professional baseball player some day instead of doing something actually useful (and far less profitable) like learning strategy, fine motor skills, teamwork, cooperation, risk/reward evaluation.... how to fly a plane, how to navigate a new area, how to work a computer beyond entry level user level (PC gaming and modding).. how to plan, how to negotiate... video games offer limitless opportunity for exposure to things FAR beyond the sprinklers in your yard, or the neighborhood field of grass.

 

[skepticalbip]

Then you have no foundation to comment. It's like your discussing the leather helmets that football players wear.

And you can play all the baseball in the world and it will never teach you the fine motor control needed to manipulate a robotic arm with a joystick, or the spacial relationships skill needed to navigate a complex set of hallways... or how to read.... or how to use a hammer to drive a nail. Or how to drive. Baseball is useless.



The irony in your posts deepen! Since the 2000's, the DoD has been explicitly seeking people with extensive video game experience to operate drones and other modern day equipment.... because they have the skills the military needs today.

Your point of view on this topic is informed by terribly outdated information that it seems you have not been interested in updating (which is fine - you just don't have a valuable opinion on this particular topic, is all).

It is true that the military has found that video gamers are good at flying and controlling drones. However, only a minute percentage of military personnel are sitting at consoles flying drones. Gaming does nothing for preparing military personnel to navigate through jungles, hike through rugged terrain with sixty to eighty pounds of gear on their back, actually maintain aim and fire a real weapon, interact with and train local militias, etc.

... true... but how does that minute number compare with the number of people chosen for their experience with playing in the sprinklers on the front lawn, or swinging a stick at a ball?

Look, I am not saying that people should do nothing but play video games... I am just saying that video games are not the devil. Many of the most successful and popular games are that way exactly because they require the development of skills ( that may or may not be useful in your life, depending on what you end up doing)... you never know... you may actually become a professional baseball player some day instead of doing something actually useful (and far less profitable) like learning strategy, fine motor skills, teamwork, cooperation, risk/reward evaluation.... how to fly a plane, how to navigate a new area, how to work a computer beyond entry level user level (PC gaming and modding).. how to plan, how to negotiate... video games offer limitless opportunity for exposure to things FAR beyond the sprinklers in your yard, or the neighborhood field of grass.

The DOD complaint was that so many new recruits today are not physically (or even emotionally) fit enough to even pass the basic requirements. There is nothing wrong with video gaming unless it is a replacement the actual real world. Outdoor activities build muscle tone, strength, and endurance and even tolerance for pain, discomfort, and boredom. Outdoor activities develop familiarity with real world environments. Outdoor sports develop teamwork, strategy, and hand-eye coordination skills.

I think maybe you are underestimating (or don't understand) what is expected and required of the average soldier.

 

[J842P]

Eyes focus using muscles. Sounds like a form of atrophy. Environment stimulates brain growth.

Baseball, basketball, T ball, and the rest are probably still the best for kids. The video game industry says games develop had eye coordination. I'd say that is nonsense.

It isn't muscular atrophy that causes nearsightedness/farsightedness. It is actually the size of your eyeball causing the cornea to focus to far in front or behind the retina. This size is apparently regulated by exposure to light, presumably, sunlight. I had read about this before, and it isn't surprising that your eyes fail to develop correctly in the absence of sunlight. Light impacts your physiology in various ways apart from vision, most notably in circadian rhythms (e.g. sleep).

 

[steve_bank]

I suppose this would be a thread for social scince.

The original game controller was called a 'joy stick' for a reason. You grab hold and manipulate building tension and excitement. You kill or destroy something and you get an orgasmic release. Basically masturbation. It becomes emotionally addictive.

I will not be around 40 or 50 years from now when all this culture becomes fully manifest in society as a whole.

It is a great social experiment.

Back in the 60s the counter culture referred to the mainstream as decedent, plastic, conformist and mindless participation.

What is developing today IMO is far more insidious. Kids are raised to be consumer bots consuming endless hours of games without the ability to question or understand.

It will be your future. Kids today will be running things in the future. I am sure video games will be an excellent foundation for adult responsibilities and roles.

Perhaps in 50 years there will be another counter culture rebelling against the new decadent mainstream establishment culture of fantasy escape. Spending a life playing video games is the height of decadence.

In the 60s 70s I was part of it, social dropout. Since then I came to view what the counter culture set in motion as disastrous. Cultural emersion in escapist video games is one aspect. The drug culture has become mainstream.

Gamers who ascribe to science and objectivity who can not analyze what they do.

 

[steve_bank]

On a news segment an officer who works in infantry traing and traing games likend much of the commercial video games to military traing.

Military infantry training conditions soldiers to point and shoot without hesitation. Repetitious training with video and live exercises to overcome the natural human instinct to hesitate.

Video games are a form of operant coediting. I watched a video game competition on TV. The game was military and the goal was to navigate through a course killing as many as you can as fast as you can. Military style kill training.

 

[bilby]

I suppose this would be a thread for social scince.

The original game controller was called a 'joy stick' for a reason.

Indeed it was - and that reason was absolutely NOTHING like you are assuming it to be.

The word first appears in English around 1910 (hyphenated as joy-stick) as the control stick on an airplane. Its relation to the word joy is unclear; It's possible that this was euphemistic slang amongst early aviators for the penis, as the control stick on early aircraft rose from between the pilot's legs, and he then gripped it with his right hand, while using his left to adjust other controls such as the throttle.

In 1952, the word 'joystick' was adopted from aviation to refer to any small lever used for controlling movement of a machine. Its first use to refer to the control of images on a screen is from 1978.

So the reason it's called a joystick is that it's a clear progression from the control lever on an aircraft. Something I would have expected a former engineer in the aviation sphere to know - but apparently I overestimated you.

You grab hold and manipulate building tension and excitement. You kill or destroy something and you get an orgasmic release. Basically masturbation. It becomes emotionally addictive.

I will not be around 40 or 50 years from now when all this culture becomes fully manifest in society as a whole.

It's had 109 years. I doubt it's going to change much more in the next 50.

It is a great social experiment.

Back in the 60s the counter culture referred to the mainstream as decedent, plastic, conformist and mindless participation.

What is developing today IMO is far more insidious. Kids are raised to be consumer bots consuming endless hours of games without the ability to question or understand.

It will be your future. Kids today will be running things in the future. I am sure video games will be an excellent foundation for adult responsibilities and roles.

Perhaps in 50 years there will be another counter culture rebelling against the new decadent mainstream establishment culture of fantasy escape. Spending a life playing video games is the height of decadence.

In the 60s 70s I was part of it, social dropout. Since then I came to view what the counter culture set in motion as disastrous. Cultural emersion in escapist video games is one aspect. The drug culture has become mainstream.

Gamers who ascribe to science and objectivity who can not analyze what they do.

You know, there's no way to prevent aging; But there's no obligation on any of us to become stereotypes of the bitter old man who despises the kids for their enjoyment of different things than we had in our youth. You are making a deliberate and (IMO) rather foolish choice.

Wallowing in nostalgia won't get you respect; It just gets you ridicule.

 

[steve_bank]

What could be better for social control than a population totally immersed in video games.

 

[bilby]

What could be better for social control than a population totally immersed in video games.

A bunch of irascible old geezers who yell at anyone who tries to change anything from the way it was fifty years ago?