Counter-Strike, chess, the brain

Computerworld.dk has published an article in which Lars Konzack and I comment on the claims of Kjeld Fredens.

I agree entirely with Lars that speaking of video games as one shapeless mass is quite unfruitful (Fredens’ claim mostly makes sense in connection with action games).

But my main point was that, cutting Fredens a little slack, the proposed hypothesis is not unreasonable – it is just undocumented. Like so many other claims about games & brains.

Also, I’m qouted for saying that video games are different from board games in the sense that the former sometimes allow single-player play but that people making”games are anti-social” claims should consider the fact that books are far more anti-social. My point here was not that “books are bad” but that the “X is anti-social” charge is uninteresting.