Blame violence in video games many young adults are playing almost all the time.

That was a finding a psychiatrist at the Veterans General Hospital in Taipei disclosed yesterday.

Textspeak is the process of shortening words and adding numbers to a text message to make it "cooler." The form of text messaging is highly annoying. One example suffice: "RU cmin out 2nite?" Deciphered: "Are you coming out tonight?"

It's the same in the United States and Taiwan. In Taiwan, many "textspeakers" write their messages in English.

Dr. Chow Yuan-hua said his study shows youngsters have low language proficiency because they play video games involving violence too often.

Twelve young adults were given tests in an experiment Dr. Chow conducted at his hospital. They were required to play one popular game, "PS2:Real Three Kingdoms;Nonpareil 4 Generations," for half an hour. Blood circulation in their brains was scanned. The entire process was repeated half an hour later. Chow found the blood circulation in the frontal lobes of all the samples reduced. "Reduction in blood circulation in the frontal lobe," the psychiatrist said, "indicates that it may affect language proficiency."

The frontal lobe is that part of the cerebral cortex in either hemisphere of the brain found directly behind the forehead. It is associated with the higher mental activities, including speech, planning and judgment.

A play of only 30 minutes causes a statistically significant reduction in blood circulation in the frontal lobe, Dr. Chow said. "How far will it harm their language capability, if they play for a longer time and almost every day," Dr. Chow asked. But Dr. Chow stressed the importance of further study. "My findings just prove there is a statistically significant association between violence in video games and low language proficiency," Dr. Chow said. "Further study is urgently needed," he added.

The psychiatrist urged parents to wean their teenage children from violence-involved video games.

"Admittedly it's difficult," Dr. Chow said. "Such games are exciting, and youngsters are easily addicted to them," he went on, adding:

"Nevertheless, parents have to try to keep them away from such games, if they don't want to receive any more 'textspeak' messages."