I always knew the PS2 was a bad idea.

[Fuct]

LONDON--Scientists have warned that children who excessively use vibrating video game controllers could develop a painful injury.

The condition--called hand-arm vibration syndrome and previously known as vibration white finger--is an industrial injury commonly associated with the prolonged use of vibratory tools such as pneumatic drills.

According to a letter published in the latest edition of the British Medical Journal, a 15-year-old boy developed hand-arm vibration syndrome after playing his Sony PlayStation games console for up to seven hours per day. The boy particularly enjoyed playing driving games that made use of the rumble board on his PlayStation controller.

For the past two years, the boy is thought to have suffered from painful hands--which have become white and swollen when exposed to cold, and red and painful when warmed. Doctors who have examined him have diagnosed that he suffers from hand-arm vibration syndrome, which they suspect is linked to the large amount of time he has spend using a vibrating controller.

This is thought to be the first published case of hand-arm vibration syndrome in a child. Drs Gavin Cleary, H. McKendrick and J. A. Sills believe that consideration should be given to publishing statutory health warnings on game controllers that offer the vibration feature. "The seven hours a day that our patient reported is excessive and exceeds the manufacturer's recommendation, but we must assume that this is not an uncommon occurrence," they wrote.

Speaking to ZDNet UK on Friday, Sony insisted that it already supplies health warnings with its products. "We recommend that users take a 15-minute break every hour, and stop playing immediately if they suffer discomfort. Playing a PlayStation for seven hours a day is against all the guidance we offer," a Sony spokesman said. "We're not belittling this report, though, as it comes from a reputable source."

He added that Sony was unaware of any previous cases of this type, even though the PlayStation has a worldwide user base of at least 100 million. "We employ people who thoroughly test all our products and we've never seen this kind of effect," the Sony spokesman said.

The PlayStation 2, the Nintendo 64 and Microsoft's Xbox and some PC joypads also support the vibration function, which is widely used in today's computer games. In driving games, for example, it is used to simulate the effect of a car being driven "off road". As Sony points out, though, it is an optional feature that can be turned off by the user.

http://msn.com.com/2100-1103-827669.html


It seems brains, common sense, logic and research, are not required to be in the medical profession these days.

 

[Freon]

arf
you wouldn't risk hand damage with Inf

 

[Kibbles-N-Bits]

Solution: Kill the parents. They are obviously not performing thier intended roles and are consuming valuable oxygen and other resources. Therefor, they are not contributing to society by beating the crap out of thier kid. Off the parents and make the kid get a job.

 

[Cap'n Beeb]

Wonder if that works for "Other" things.

 

[CrappyChan]

heh, but really, the most I've ever played my PSone, or PS2 is like 5 hours, lol.

That was GTA3 and FFX, but I can still mast..err sew fine...


not to mention the dip**** played 7 hours a day. He's lucky he didn't get epilepsy. As seen on this site http://www.seizurebots.com/

 

[GenoOfTheCrayon]

Hehe, I like that site's music.

 

[JaFO]

Originally posted by Fuct

http://msn.com.com/2100-1103-827669.html

It seems brains, common sense, logic and research, are not required to be in the medical profession these days.

these people earn more money by doing stupid tests & drinking coffee ... while you spend 40+ hours making yourself tired for a few measily cents ...
Now who's stupid ?

This article once again proves that brains aren't a requirement for being parents ... => I'd suggest we remove these people from the genepool ASAP.

 

[DEFkon]

7 hours.. per day... playing a game? ok maybe i'm just the one that thinks that this kid umm.... had alot more issues than just "vibration white finger". I mean we've all had that binge when we've played a new game for a hours upon hours, but if you can keep that up for weeks, and months.. then i'm sorry but he had it comming.....

I mean how the heck are you supposed to test for that?! "ok boby, were gonna glue your hands to this PS2 controler, and let it vibrate for 7000 hours straight... or just short of a year to simulate people with no lives. Now technically this test is illegal since it's considered imprisoning a child and violates a number of child labor laws.. so we'll have to do it out on a pacific mining plant to avoid these legal technicalities...."

Jeeesh.. what kind of parents lets there 12-15 year old play games for 8 hour sessions daily.. but then again for all we know this kid is mentally retarded or messed up already, so maybe that's all he can do.

But as the un-typical american, i say "put the blame where it belongs." It's the kid's fault. plain and simple.

Saying it's the parents or game company's fault is the same retarded argument that people use when they blame gun companies for murder, or waaah i shot up the school because my parents didn't love me. yup.. it's everybody's fault but his.

 

[DeadeyeDan[ToA]]

The difference is, companies, governments, etc. aren't responsible for protecting people from their own stupidity. Parents are. In fact that's their main purpose, until the kid is 18. (I don't think "I had a bad childhood" is any kind of excuse either; once emancipated from their parents, they take responsibility, screwed up or not.)

 

[Keganator]

Holy ****... 7 hours a day. For two years. Isn't there a little matter of something called

A) Sleep
B) Eating
C) School
D) Studies

???

Or did this kid just take "Final Fantasy: The home study course" ???

 

[})FA|Snake]

I didn't see anything in the article blaming the game companies, It sounded to me as if they were calling the kid an idiot

 

[DEFkon]

i wish they had.

To me the artical came across as a general heads up. Like "Hey, there might actually be consiquenses if don't take a break once in a while." there seemed to be no implied "blame" on any particular party, as it wasn't known to be a potentially dangerous practice other than the typical anti-social ones we all know about.

They questioned sony slightly about it, and they answered about as politically correct as possible. The kid didn't follow the instructions, and he abused himself and the system, and something went wrong. Gee what a surprise. But the artical did slightly place some blame or suspiscion on sony though.

If the child had over dosed on pain killers, rather than video games i seriously doubt that you'd have seen the reporter ask the medical company for their position on the situation. Course they would've said the same general thing. "he didn't follow instructions, and it sucks to be him." But ya know what that's life.

so to sum up the artical harshly: "kid with no life hurts himself".

 

[OICW]

Most people that age I know would probably require wrist surgery because they jerk off too much while looking up pr0n, instead of playing a Playstation

 

[NNA2m]

Hehe, from that I take it he was about 10 right?

There's a guy at my school who probably plays PS enough to get that
Hmmm... He stabbed this other guy with a pen, but I'm pretty sure it's unrelated...