More and more the CT scans of the brains of young adults are showing irregularities. These deficient characteristics were not inflicted knowingly but they were a product of the environment. Researchers are just now realizing that the time it takes for an adult brain to attain full development is longer than had been expected. In women who tend to physically mature faster than boys due to hormonal development the age of a full developed brain is about 21 years of old. Shockingly, for young men the age of 25. This may not seem that significant, but when one considers the early age of exposure in many kids to alcohol, drugs, and smoking these factors can definitely affect whether or not thinking and reasoning processes are affected.

Requiem for abnormality

To think of the effects of drugs and smoking on the under developed brain is bad enough, but medical specialists have begun evaluating the effects of video games both physiologically and psychologically on the development of a growing child’s brain. Studies indicate that the artificial inducement of adrenaline and brain opiates at concentrated levels due to the unusual stimulus of video games that are violent and dramatic will have lasting effects on the cognitive capabilities as well as normal emotional responses of young adults.

In real world combat

George Carlin, well known comedian cracked a joke back during the Desert Storm conflict that “Our Nintendo Pilots” where wreaking havoc on our enemies. There have actually been advocates for using video games as a way of evaluating the capabilities of the modern combat pilot with so much electronic instrumentality to monitor it takes a certain skill set that many normal applicants might not have, but what is the downside to such behavior? Would there not be deficits in normal emotional states, lack of ability to attain intimacy on a non-sexual level, lack of empathy, the unrealistic attitude toward death and destruction though desensitization through simulated battle and violence? This they found to be true. It was found that during the Vietnam War the loss of pilots due to SAM’s (Surface to Air Missiles) was due to a psychological condition known as “Saturation”  where the pilot was inundated with so many instrument alarms and readings that he could not effectively focus on life saving combat skills. He was shot down due to too many distractions.

Lack of social skills

This same inability to meet challenges could manifest itself in the aftermath of early exposure to drugs and alcohol, but even earlier exposure to video games creating an unreal environment for the human mind, an unnatural stimulus that trains the brain in a certain way but at the same time retards normal sensitivity or social skills between other people. Life is challenging enough with hardship, pressures, and stress but then to add more abnormality to the perception landscape and you have young adults who cannot adapt, become drama queens, are much more vulnerable to group think and less critical thought. Think of it why have people become to illogical and so incapable of seeing common sense? We have two generations, maybe more of emotional cripples where desensitizing video games and the new virtual reality games have bred large numbers of abnormal thinking and responses from the young users. Who knows what the long term effects of such exposure does to the minds of adults who matured under artificial influences?

A sad future

If one were to make the case that we have millennials and Gen Z who are largely abnormal to that we once defined as emotionally and mentally healthy we should point to the fact that much more awareness toward mental health is required today. It seems more people are acting out on airlines, coming unglued for no good reason among other groups, easily influenced into doing self-destructive things for vague and poorly proven causes. The evidence is there. All of these factors have been combined perhaps to devastating effect and combine this with more concentrated exposure to artificial mind influences.US soldiers coming back from war under as many as 14 psychotropic drugs are committing record suicides, your men of the millennial; generation. 

The unsettling aftermath

If Mark Zuckerberg had his way, we would all be in a META artificially induced world of virtual perception. Almost the same as electronically induced schizophrenia! Someday, society will be dependent on being involved in the internet reality or be left out of the loop and unable to participate in the new reality of the social world. The human mind was never intended for so much artificial stimulus yet we are seeing the effects of it more and more through soaring prescription drug use for students, soldiers, and high pressure business execs. Walking zombies are not that uncommon, Murderers causing mass shootings are common place. How much did that have to do with the conditioning of drugs, alcohol, and the isolationism of electronic gaming causing a lack of empathy in the immature neurological response of our youth?