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Anybody experience confusion and brain fog after playing video games?

Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:15 pm
by garycooper
Tireless, limited attention, bad memory, low motivation....
I had to give up gaming. Most games, especially strategy games and shooters, that require a lot of attention or micromanagement are the worst, and I can usually feel it after less than an hour of playing.
Usually, the next day would feel the worst. Sometimes I would need 2-3 days to get back to normal.
Anyone else?

Re: Anybody experience confusion and brain fog after playing video games?

Posted: Fri Oct 16, 2020 11:19 pm
by arahant
garycooper wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:15 pm Tireless, limited attention, bad memory, low motivation...
I had to give up gaming. Most games, especially strategy games and shooters, that require a lot of attention or micromanagement are the worst, and I can usually feel it after less than an hour of playing.
Usually, the next day would feel the worst. Sometimes I would need 2-3 days to get back to normal.
Anyone else?
It's a long discussion; I will try to summarize.
"State effects of action video-game playing on visuospatial processing efficiency and attention among experienced action video-game players."
https://escholarship.org/uc/item/7108h8b4
"The findings indicate half an hour of action video-game playing temporarily boosted participants’ performances on tasks that require visual memory, spatial transformations (mental rotation), and executive network of attention. "
I have attended a talk from the author of the paper above, Maria Kozhevnikov, Ph.D.
She is a psychologist and cognitive sciences researcher.

She presented this paper and other empirical findings comparing with Tibetan Buddhist meditation practices.

In summary, in some games like first-person shooters or "escape room," the brain triggers the "survival mode" so that consumes all resources to "make you alive" on a turn where a "headshot" is always a threat.
So that a state of "enhanced cognition" arrises and persists shorter after that.
It's sometimes called "flow," and people in car accidents, earthquakes, tornadoes have reported an absurd clarity of thinking and problem solving for a short period while trying to survive.
One note that other silly games, like Tetris, did not produce the same result.

So those findings of this study:
indicate that half an hour of FPS video game playing temporarily boosted participants’ performances on tasks that require visual memory, spatial transformations (mental rotation), and executive network of attention. The effect of enhanced performance disappeared and returned to the baseline level for all the tasks after 30 minutes of rest.
Someone asked her during the talk if it's possible to maintain a loop of playing followed by 30 min of boosted cognition all day long.

She said, like:
Our body did not evolve to handle longer periods of "survival mode" (e.g., soldiers on battlefields). It comes with a cost...
One scenario is a professional gamer in shape physically and emotionally playing FPS...
Another scenario is someone already passing through tense moments in life, and at the same time, playing FPS games many hours a day.

It can even produce emotional desensitization (Anderson et al., 2010; Bushman & Gibson, 2011).

Just a note, the meditative practices which induced enhanced cognitive states compared with the professional FPS gamers (Unreal arena), are traditionally not practiced by inexperienced monks without supervision, and it's strongly recommended not to overdo it. They learned after centuries that it's not a good idea to burn out mental resources.

Re: Anybody experience confusion and brain fog after playing video games?

Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2020 5:32 am
by Naczoz
yep, same here, with my severe anhedonia and loss of emotions I cant play and pay attention to it. this is fucking sad

Re: Anybody experience confusion and brain fog after playing video games?

Posted: Sat Oct 17, 2020 9:46 am
by JakeLawe
garycooper wrote: Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:15 pm Tireless, limited attention, bad memory, low motivation....
I had to give up gaming. Most games, especially strategy games and shooters, that require a lot of attention or micromanagement are the worst, and I can usually feel it after less than an hour of playing.
Usually, the next day would feel the worst. Sometimes I would need 2-3 days to get back to normal.
Anyone else?
Never.
My guess, though: You may be depressed and/or feel depressed for being "unproductive" after playing video games.

Confusion and brain fog are of course symptoms of sadness..

I'd say, if possible, don't judge yourself for having some hours a day of good ol videogaming and/or take something for sadness/ fatigue.

Could be something else, of course, but that's my guess. If you follow my advice and improve, if possible, let us know, please.

Cheers.

Re: Anybody experience confusion and brain fog after playing video games?

Posted: Mon Oct 19, 2020 1:10 pm
by Trazohell
No but after watching porn

Re: Anybody experience confusion and brain fog after playing video games?

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2021 4:47 pm
by seismicwaves
Maybe it's the type of games that should be considered causing this. I guess casual story telling games would not cause this.