Where would be half the content of this column without me finding more “research” of idiots trying to villify video games. I know it seems that I do pick on the articles on the ScienceDaily domain, they just make themselves out to be easy targets by displaying such stupid research and trying to make all us real gamers out to be criminials/psychopaths/deviants, and in this case, sicknotes. As usual you can read the whole article here.

Interactive Video Games Can Cause a Broad Range of Injuries
ScienceDaily (Oct. 5, 2010) — Interactive gaming devices can cause a broad range of injuries, from abrasions and sprains to shoulder, ankle and foot injuries, according to research presented Oct. 4, at the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference and Exhibition in San Francisco.

While relatively new, interactive gaming devices, such as Nintendo Wii, are tremendously popular. They differ from traditional video games in that they require participants to physically mime the movements of a particular sport or activity while competing against a real or computer-generated competitor. With the increased physical movement and interaction, researchers sought to determine what types of injuries were sustained from these interactive gaming devices.

To do this, they reviewed National Electronic Injury Surveillance System data on video game-related injuries, sustained by people of all ages, between January 1, 2004 and January 1, 2009.

A total of 696 video game-related injuries were reported over the 5-year period. The mean age of those injured was 16.5 years with an age range of 1 month to 86 years. There were 604 injuries resulting from traditional games with 92 injuries from the newer interactive games. Of the interactive game injuries, 49 were sustained by males (53.3 percent) and 43 by females (46.7 percent).

When compared to the traditional video game group, participants in the interactive group were significantly more likely to injure their shoulder, ankle, and foot. Bystander injuries occurred in both the interactive and the traditional groups with significantly more bystander injuries in the interactive group.

Right can I mention that doing ANYTHING will result in a chance of injuring yourself. You can suffer a cracked skull by falling off a toilet, yet I don’t see any research saying that you shouldn’t go for a crap! Eating is also a mine field of injury seeing that every single kitchen utensil has the ability to remove and eye and the vast majority have the ability to impale you! Going to the pub can give you alcohol poisoning, hiking can give you tetanus, hell even drinking a bottle of water can potentially give you typhoid. So what do people say we should do instead of play video games? Go outside and be active. Do you know how many times I’ve hurt myself playing football? Or falling off a bike? Which is it going to be you phony scientists? Be active and hurt yourself, or play games and hurt yourself.

We all can’t live in a sterile biosphere like E.T. all the time otherwise our psyche will deteriorate to the level of Howard Hughes. Once again I can’t believe stuff like this gets published, but the section which said about “bystander” injuries just made me laugh.

If someone is brandishing a Wii remote in your vicinity, then use your common sense! You never see a statistic detailing “common sense related injuries” do you? So why is it indicative of gamers then? People all over the world have almost Darwinistic ways of hurting themselves so why is there only a report talking about people hurting themselves as a result of games.

The most I’ve hurt myself from gaming stems from not playing in moderation as I suppose it won’t surprise anyone if their hand/wrist hurts after 5 straight hours of Guitar Hero!  Considering there’s only 696 injuries in 5 years, so that’s 139.2 per year. Which is 11.6 per month. Considering how many sales of the Wii have been since it’s release in 2006…which was 4 years ago (more science fail there), which I’ve read has reached about 8.3 million in October. So in the last 4 years, 696/8.6million = a number too fucking small to even worry about.

Thank you again for attempting to scare parents off letting their children enjoy video games. Find some real science and then I’ll look at it more favourably. Instead, you choose to publish utter bollocks again. Go and get signal. Games are for fun, but everything in moderation and you’ll be fine.