Many people who spend a lot of time playing video games insist that they have helped them in areas like confidence-building, presentation skills and debating. Yet this Way of thinking about video games can be found ‘almost nowhere within the mainstream media, which still tend to treat games as an odd mix of the slightly menacing and the alien. This lack of awareness has become increasingly inappropriate, as video games and the culture that surrounds them have become very big business indeed. Recently, the British goverment released the Byron report into the effects of electronic media on children. its conclusions set out @ lear, rational basis for exploring the regulation of video games. The ensuing debate, however, has descended into the same old squabbling between partisan factions: the preachers of mental and moral decline, and the innovative ‘game designers. In between are the gamers, busily buying and playing while nonsense is talked over theirheads. Susan Greenfield, renowned neuroscientist, outlines her concerns in a new book. Every individual's mind is the product of a brain that thas been personalised by the sum total of their experiences; with an increasing quantity ‘of our experiences from very early childhood ‘aking place’on screen’ rather than in the world, ‘there is potentially a profound shift in the Is there more to video than people rea is children's minds. work. fast-paced, second-hand by video games and the ‘a worldview that is less emp: taking and less c tend to think of as heathy. Greenfield's prose is full of and. self-contradictions and worst enemy of her atten This is unfortunate, b ‘technophiles_ may snort, widely held fears that games are at their fo divide has opened that profound than the equi with radio or tel those unfamiliar with 1pallenges But hur the world Jommunication and &x severing the question axteaching his t00! satisfaction via the com worlds, not by their esting the nature and such imaginary worlds fh with scientific methods th addiction, while the c« that playing video She has @ point. We instance, the uni and expand the give us the mean’ situations in the. ‘games industryQuestions 27-92 Do the folowing statements 2708 wi In boxes 27-920n your answer sheet wie ys ofthe writer ‘the statement agrees withthe ve ky He erenentconrars eves of he Wy ‘writer thinks about this ‘No NOT GIVEN tne views of the witerin Reading ‘27 Much media comment ignores the “The publication ofthe Byron Repor ‘against video games. 29° Susan Greonfila's way of wring has become more tie thal that video games wil take over the roe of {31 More sociable games are being brought out to satisty the 82 Being atrad of technological advances isa justfiable reaction. ‘complex over the years, certain kinds of books in ‘demands of the! Questions 33-37 ‘Choose the correct letter, A,B, C or D. Wirite the correct letter, A-D, in boxes 33-37 on your answer sheet. 3 Acorn tne wt ha vow abut wo gares des Susan rani ‘A They ae exposing a child to an adut view ofthe world too B —_Cildren become easily tightened by some of the © They ae changing the way children's view ofthe world Children dont learn from them because they are too 34 According tothe writer, what problems are faced when regulating | ‘The widespread and ever-changing use of games.