Perils of a pumped-up Playstation Prince

IT WAS an off-the-cuff remark, made in haste. Prince Harry spoke of his experiences on the frontline with the studied insouciance adopted by so many soldiers who have seen active service. Theirs, they know, is a job to be done. Even if that job means the taking of life.

And so, as a soldier of his generation, it seemed, initially, entirely understandable that the Prince equated his proficiency at playing video games with being ‘useful’ in operating the weapons of his Apache helicopter. His use of soldiers’ parlance when explaining it was necessary to take ‘enemy fighters out of the game’ may seem equally unremarkable.

But the truth is his comments should make us stop and think. We have all witnessed the dexterity young people today display with their smartphones and PlayStations. They negotiate a virtual world that absorbs more and more of their time. And while most of us can easily differentiate between the real world and the virtual world online, what truly worries me is that there is an increasing number of youngsters who are becoming disassociated from the real world. Instead, they are inhabiting a virtual world in which the concept of consequences has less and less meaning.

In my view, prolonged playing of video games will mean spending more and more time in a world that is so exciting and – literally – sensational that it outcompetes the real world. You can afford to be reckless in a way that would have dire results in the real world. Gamers can knife someone to death and then bring them back to life. Everything is reversible.

What effect will constant video-gaming have on the impressionable young brain? One may be on attention span. It seems that while video-gamers might be good at attending to a stimulus, if that stimulus is competing with other distractions, they will not be so good, nor will they be able to pay attention for long periods of time. They have a problem not in ‘selective attention’, but rather in ‘sustained attention’.

Even though violent games have not been proved directly to cause criminally violent behaviour, the evidence is stronger that playing them may increase the type of low-grade hostility that happens every day in school.

The crucial factor is how much an individual is indulging in playing games. The problem is with the numbers of frequent gamers who seem to be obsessional or compulsive.

In one investigation of gamers, the key finding was of an enlargement of an area of the brain where a key chemical messenger – dopamine – is released. This is known to occur during high arousal, and also to be closely linked to addiction. So, if released during video games, then it would fit with the idea that gaming is leading to a third problem: potential addiction.

Prince Harry, fresh from active service, will no doubt be delighted to be reunited with the virtual world so beloved of his generation and will now re-integrate with the real world of Royal duty.

But for those youngsters who remain in the thrall of their onscreen world, we must think of ways of making the real world more rewarding and fulfilling.