apostropher: June 2003 Archives 2:06 am
In acknowledgement of the time of this entry, I'll mention this story. Japanese researchers at Akita University School of Medicine published a study indicating that viewing computer monitors at night, particularly bright ones, produces physiological changes that could disrupt the sleep cycle. Interesting enough, if not particularly surprising. But what caught my eye was only mentioned in passing. They had the subjects doing exciting (a shooting game) and boring (addition) tasks on bright and dim displays and collected a range of measurements during the tasks.
Rectal temperature was recorded at two-minute intervals during each task. [...] The rectal temperature decreased during the night in all conditions. The rectal temperature was higher during the exciting task than during the boring one and significantly higher during the tasks with a BD than during the tasks with a DD in the latter half of each task.
Now, I'm not really a gamer; you get much past left, right, fire, and hyperspace and I start to panic. I can add numbers in my head pretty easily. But I have to think my ability at either would be greatly diminished by the distraction of 11 rectal temperature readings in a twenty minute span.
Posted by apostropher at 02:06 AM
