Alex Londal
Bio Current event
"Playing Tetris Reduces Food and Nicotine
Cravings, Study Shows." Fox News. FOX News Network, 17 Mar.
2014. Web. 17 Mar. 2014.
<http://www.foxnews.com/health/2014/03/17/tetris-reduces-food-and-nicotine-cravings/>.
Who would think that a video game could cut
cravings? Well, according to this
article, Tetris can. A study by an
independent group revealed that playing the blocky game reduced the desire for
food, caffeine, and nicotine.
Researchers took 119 college students and told them to write down their
cravings, classifying what they are and how strongly they are wanted. The researchers took about half the students,
selected at random, and told them to play Tetris. The other half was also instructed to play,
but they got a loading screen and an error message that did not let them
play. Afterwards, the students were once
again told to write down their cravings.
The people who played Tetris found that their cravings were
significantly lowered, while the people who did not play found that theirs had
lowered, but by a much smaller margin.
Everyone
has cravings, and there is nothing we can do about that. However, instead of people giving into the
temptation, this would definitely be a better option. While they did not test how long these
cravings went away for, they do know that they were reduced and kept people
away for a while. If everybody did this,
obesity might fall and create a healthier society.
This finding
may be surprising, but there are many flaws in the article. First, the students tested were mainly
female, so the accuracy regarding men might be tainted. Also, the article does not name the
organization that conducted the test, so there is no way we can obtain the
data. In addition, a large part of the
article was quotes from people that were not at all involved with the study, questioning
the researchers credibility. Had the
writer gave the name of the organization and more direct links to the study, it
would be much more credible. One of the
things the article did right, however, is include specifics about the test and
how it was preformed. This certainly
upped its accuracy and validity.
Sorry about the white highlights, those were added by accident.
ReplyDeleteAlex did a great job with this current event. I like how he started with a question so he automatically pulled me in and made me want to learn more. Alex did a good job of clearly explaining the experiment so it was easy to follow. It interested me how an app could affect someone’s cravings and made me want to learn more about what happens in the brain that allows the cravings to take place. This current event made me wonder if Tetris was made to relieve people from these cravings or if it was just a coincidence. I also wondered if the scientists used 119 adults instead college students for this experiment, would the results be different? I think Alex did a good job of listing all the flaws in his article however; he can improve on his current event by choosing an article with less flaws next time. To conclude, I think Alex did a good job on his current event. He really seemed interested in his topic, which allowed his current event to be enjoyable to read.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Alex's critques of this study. It seems a bit preliminary. I wonder why they used mostly women for the research, and how this could skew the results. I wonder what would happen if they asked people about their cravings 5 minutes after the game, instead of immediately afterward. I wonder if playing any game would work. Maybe instead of a control group staring at an error message on a computer screen they should have had a different type of game or activity. Maybe Tetris isn't special, maybe playing Mario Kart or Zelda, or any other video game would work. There are many follow-up questions to this study that need to be pursued. I think for FoxNews to cover this at so early a stage was a bit much. I bet Alex himself could design an even better video-game craving experiment. Alex, you up for the challenge??
ReplyDeleteI think Alex did a wonderful job reviewing this article. I really liked how he neatly summarized the content. There was no wasted text so you could understand the article very well. I also liked how he expressed his findings and conclusion from the article. The second paragraph does that in an efficient manner. Also, the review of the article was most interesting seeing as the factors of only female students and no organization name are peculiar mistakes. I was very impressed by the human brains ability o lower cravings simply by playing Tetris. I will have to try this experiment myself, but it would be nice to know how long they played for. That is a very important factor. I also found the fact that a simple game like Tetris can make such a significant impact on cravings. I suggest that the amount of time that the students played for is to be noted and if it is not in the article, then signify in the flaws that it is not present.
ReplyDelete