The Sun: Computer games ‘are giving kids dementia’

Drawing on every gaming clich under the sun, the UK’s leading tabloid has this morning thrown yet another spectacular accusation at video games.

This time the claim is that video games and Facebook can lead ‘lead to temporary dementia’.

Neuroscientist Baroness Greenfield urged youngsters to turn off their computers, go outdoors and enjoy fresh air instead”, according to The Sun. In a single year kids can, according to Greenfield, spend up to 2,000 hours staring at a screen.

This, she says, poses risks such as computer addiction”.

Even more bewilderingly, she argues that connections in the brain "can be temporarily disabled by activities with a strong sensory content – blowing the mind – or they can be inactivated permanently by degeneration — ie. dementia".

Baroness Greenfield isProfessorofSynapticPharmacologyatLincoln College, Oxford, as well as a member of the House of Lords.