If you are of a certain age, you grew up with Nintendo NES, SNES, and Nintendo 64, which means you've probably blown in your fair share of video game cartridges.

We believed (and I still kind of believe) that clearing the dust fixed the game! I mean, it makes sense to me. The game didn't work, then I blew in it, then it did work. I fixed it, duh!

Well, apparently not. The PBS Digital Studios show, It's Okay to Be Smart, explains that our brain was just playing tricks on us. We just wanted to believe the pattern. Our brains love patterns.

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Chris Higgins, from Mental Floss, states, "My money is on the blowing thing being a pure placebo, offering the user just another chance at getting a good connection. The problems with Nintendo’s connector system are well-documented, and most of them are mechanical — they just wore out faster than expected.”

I'm still skeptical. I mean, how could my entire childhood be a farce!

But, I suppose, these people are much smarter than me and actually took the time to actually debunk this practice, so maybe they're right.

I still think it's interesting, as stated in the video, how this practice spread. I mean, when you think about it, it's pretty impressive that in a time before the internet and text messages, everybody knew to blow on the games. We just knew.

 

 

 

 

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