Brain Games For 12 Year Olds Online
Olympia Brackin
This FBI tactic was a mainstay of terrorism prosecutions for roughly two decades. While its use lately has waned, the Ventura case may indicate that authorities are still open to conjuring terrorists where none existed.
Over the next year two years, Ventura continued sending small amounts of cash through gift cards to the FBI agent, mostly through gaming stores like Steam, PlayStation Network, and Google Play. The amounts of his small transactions, which spanned over roughly two years, added up to a total of $965 during the time that he was a juvenile, and another $705 after he became a legal adult.
In January 2023, just after his 18th birthday, Ventura got back in touch with the FBI agent on the encrypted messaging platform. Apologizing for not being communicative in previous months after his supposed injury, Ventura again said he wanted to travel to the Islamic State. The pair discussed the possibility of him dying in an attack by ISIS fighters somewhere in the world or attending a training camp.
Ventura sent the FBI operative another $25 Google Play gift certificate, which he was assured would be used for jihad, before trying and failing to book several flights due to apparent lack of access to a credit card. On April 10 this year, Ventura finally succeeded in booking a Turkish Airlines flight to Egypt.
The picture that emerges in the charging documents is, instead, the more familiar tale of an impressionable, vulnerable young man, legally a child at the point the investigation began, groomed by FBI undercover agents online to break the law and generate flashy headlines in the aftermath.
The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.
Background: Maintain Your Brain (MYB) is a randomized controlled trial of an online multi-modal lifestyle intervention targeting modifiable dementia risk factors with its primary aim being to reduce cognitive decline in an older age cohort.
Methods: MYB aims to recruit 8,500 non-demented community dwelling 55 to 77 year olds from the Sax Institute's 45 and Up Study in New South Wales, Australia. Participants will be screened for risk factors related to four modules that comprise the MYB intervention: physical activity, nutrition, mental health, and cognitive training. Targeting risk factors will enable interventions to be personalized so that participants receive the most appropriate modules. MYB will run for three years and up to four modules will be delivered sequentially each quarter during year one. Upon completing a module, participants will continue to receive less frequent booster activities for their eligible modules (except for the mental health module) until the end of the trial.
Discussion: MYB will be the largest internet-based trial to attempt to prevent cognitive decline and potentially dementia. If successful, MYB will provide a model for not just effective intervention among older adults, but an intervention that is scalable for broad use.
I have received many desperate emails from mainly mums asking me what could have possibly happened to their beautiful boy, some even contemplating whether their lad had been stolen by an alien and replaced.
Winning competitions or completing things to a level that they feel is acceptable gives our boys a sense of self-worth that they give themselves. If there is little chance of doing well enough, or winning, there is a tendency for some boys to avoid participating to do it at an obvious, less competent level so that their authentic self-worth can be maintained.
For many 14-year-old boys this is also the window where their brains do the most significant brain pruning and for those boys who already had some challenges remembering things and finding things like milk in the fridge or their socks, then becoming even more forgetful can make them feel really useless, even stupid.
They may also consume far too much Milo or even steal the tin and hide it in their room. They struggle with big ugly feelings and can be known to punch a hole in the wall if a sibling has eaten the last biscuit in the tin!
This is not intentional. This is not deliberate. This is a sign of an early adolescent brain doing some early modifications. With an increase in moments of perceived failure, boys create a fake mask and hide behind it in order to protect themselves from not just the chaotic world and also from themselves!
At the same time as the brain pruning there is an increased production of testosterone and a hunger for creating dopamine, the feel-good neurochemical that comes from having fun, doing risky stuff, watching scary things, gaming and doing physical activity that they love.
A sobering statistic shows that your chances of dying during adolescence especially for boys increases by 400% especially in rural areas where four beautiful boys can be killed in a car accident after just two seconds of poor choice making.
14 -year-old boys are emotionally fragile and cover this with many of the behaviours that make mum especially frustrated. I once worked with a lad this age after he almost took his life and he shared with me that his mum had frozen him out after he had a lousy report. He thought she had stopped loving him and he did not want to live without her love. Freezing out is a female way of expressing displeasure that girls and women know well boys do not see it the same way.
I have also worked with a 16-year-old lad who again was almost lost to our world because his mum wanted him to take maths and science subjects when he wanted to an arts course as he loved music. She told him he would not be able to live well or be successful if he did the arts course. He almost preferred to die than to disappoint his mum. Fortunately this was able to be resolved.
Our 14-year-old boys can be smelly, unmotivated, lazy, moody and confused at the same time as being frightened, sad, emotionally vulnerable and wanting to do well. A warm unconditionally loving relationship with their mum can be unbelievably important.
Thankfully 14-year-old boys are only 14 once and as they get older they mature and become better at managing their brains, hormones and bodies. If you can hold their hearts gently while they are 14, they will love you forever mumma.
Toddlerhood can be a difficult time to navigate. Learn how self-control develops in children so you can better understand where your children are developmentally and how to best support them. Ideal for parents of 1-5 year olds. Register for 1PM.
Decrease stress around screens and technology in your family. Learn how to identify your family values around screens and make a family media plan that works for you. Ideal for parents of 5-12 year olds but all are welcome. Register for 1PM.
Feedback, questions or accessibility issues: in...@extension.wisc.edu 2024 The Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
Privacy Policy Non-Discrimination Policy & How to File a Complaint Disability Accommodation Requests
At age 17, Anthony Rosner of London, England, was a hero in the World of Warcraft online gaming community. He built empires, led raids, and submerged himself in a fantasy world that seemingly fulfilled his every need. Meanwhile, his real life was virtually nonexistent. He neglected his schoolwork, relationships, health, even his hygiene.
Researchers in China, for example, performed magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies on the brains of 18 college students who spent an average of 10 hours a day online, primarily playing games like World of Warcraft. Compared with a control group who spent less than two hours a day online, gamers had less gray matter (the thinking part of the brain).
As far back as the early 1990s, scientists warned that because video games only stimulate brain regions that control vision and movement, other parts of the mind responsible for behavior, emotion, and learning could become underdeveloped.
A study published in the scientific journal Nature in 1998 showed that playing video games releases the feel-good neurotransmitter dopamine. The amount of dopamine released while playing video games was similar to what is seen after intravenous injection of the stimulant drugs amphetamine or methylphenidate.
Yet despite mounting evidence about the cognitive, behavioral, and neurochemical impact of gaming, the concept of game addiction (online or not) is difficult to define. Some researchers say that it is a distinct psychiatric disorder, while others believe it may be part of another psychiatric disorder. The current version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-V, states that more research needs to be done before "Internet Gaming Disorder" can be formally included.
But not all gaming is bad. Video games can help the brain in a number of ways, such as enhanced visual perception, improved ability to switch between tasks, and better information processing. "In a way, the video game model is brilliant," says Judy Willis, M.D., neurologist, educator, and American Academy of Neurology (AAN) member based in Santa Barbara, CA. "It can feed information to the brain in a way that maximizes learning," she says.
Video games are designed with a reward structure that's completely unpredictable. The tension of knowing you might score (or kill a warlock), but not knowing exactly when, keeps you in the game. "It's exactly the same reward structure as a slot machine," says Dr. Greenfield. The player develops an unshakeable faith, after a while, that "this will be the time I hit it big."
This region of the brain doesn't reach maximum capacity until age 25 or 30, which may explain why young people are more likely to engage in hours of play while ignoring basic needs like food, sleep, and hygiene. Without mature frontal lobes to draw on, adolescents and teens are less able to weigh negative consequences and curb potentially harmful behavior like excessive video gaming, which also impacts frontal lobe development.