How Gaming Can Save the World

An anonymous reader writes "Game designer and all-around interesting person Jane McGonigal just published a book arguing that playing games will help solve the urgent problems of the real world. To mark the publication, Discover Magazine has a Q&A with McGonigal on several topics, such as: exactly how much gaming is too much? 'There was a really significant study that tracked 1,100 soldiers for a year, and looked at how they were spending their free time with things they considered coping mechanisms—using Facebook, listening to music, reading, working out, or playing video games. They correlated this with incidences of post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), depression, suicide attempts, and domestic violence. The found that by a very wide margin, the most psychologically protected individuals—who had the lowest rates of any of these negative experiences—were people who were playing video games 3 to 4 hours a day. ... That was fascinating—it was more beneficial than anything but working out 7 hours a day.' She also talks about how relationships forged in games can change the world, and which world problems exactly is she trying to solve via games. (Hint: think big.)"

Comments

Correlation / Causation

[HaeMaker]

Here we go again! Did game playing really prevent PTSD or are people who play games less susceptible to PTSD?

Re:Correlation / Causation

[Onuma]

I've had PTSD (combat-related). Glad to say that I haven't had a real problem with it in about 5 years, but even to this day I hear the right kind of *BANG* and have momentary flashbacks of the sh!t I've been through. A door slamming with a loud thud can sound like a mortar exploding in the distance. Seeing a flaming car on the side of the road might remind me of a time when that was a blown-up Humvee.

You know why it didn't develop into a debilitating problem for me? Diversions, and talking with other soldiers/marines/airmen/sailors who've been in similar situations, if not the same time & place where I nearly got blown up on more than one occasion. No one who hasn't been in a combat zone can comprehend the reality of things; "99% boredom, 1% chaos" is the tip of the iceberg.

Gaming helped me to put those times in the back of my mind, rather than constantly having to deal with them in the foreground.
Are gamers more or less susceptible to PTSD? I don't believe so. I think it's just a coping mechanism which can prove to be quite useful in treatment. It's much better than trying to forget through drinking; the worst you'll get is atrophy, vs. a possibly life-threatening addiction and delirium tremens.

TLDR: Gaming is a good outlet, regardless of what kind of gaming it is. CoD, solitaire, or WoW can all be potentially therapeutic to individuals who may have otherwise developed PTSD.

Gaming can save the world

[Dexter Herbivore]

Gaming can save the world's food crisis by sending people on quests to collect 20 Talbuk ears, the carcass left over afterwards provides a sustainable supply of meat if the respawn rate is high enough.

Re:Time to..

[Dexter Herbivore]

Interestingly, PTSD is highly correlated with "having actual experiences in the real world". Gaming more than 3 hours a day is, by and large, negatively correlated with "having experiences in the real world", and as such, must be negatively correlated with PTSD.

You obviously missed the part where TFS stated "tracked 1,100 soldiers for a year". These test subjects were outside and although not explicitly stated were presumably in a combat zone when these tests occured.

Re:Well, now that you mention it...

[Moraelin]

Or to give another example of a conflict solved by, shall we say, less than martial means, take an insvasion of Russia by the Mongols, where the armies met on the opposite edges of a river, and with obviously neither having enough superiority to charge across the river. So after shouting various slurs and insults to the other for a couple of days, the Mongols, obviously having lost to the superior cussword vocabulary of the brave defenders from Muskowy, turned tail and went home.

Well, I guess the fact that the Russians had moved some kind of moving fort to threaten their flank may have also played a role, but that's not as funny ;)

I'm not sure you understand the army

[Moraelin]

I'm not sure you understand the army. Actually judging by half the answers in the thread, lots of people seem to think it's like in their games.

Some 3-4 hours a day are a lot when you spend 8 hour at your day job, 2 hours commuting so you can live in the right fashionable suburb, and have to balance everything from dealing with the kids to getting the roof fixed in the rest of the time. That's when 3-4 hours a day to spend on gaming starts to be more time than you actually have.

When you're on some military base at the end of nowhere, and you live right there too, all those factors just don't apply. It's not like those guys spend 16 hours a day shooting at the enemy or standing in guard towers, because even all out war doesn't actually work that way. And also because nobody can resist such a program in the long term. Working 16 hour days is fine for a couple of weeks tops, then you start getting tired and making mistakes.

Even when you pulled guard duty, actually it doesn't mean camping at that post all day, but pretty much time slicing if I'm allowed a computer metaphor. You spend your time slice at your post, then have the next two time slices free. Even between sleeping, eating, polishing your boots and whatnot, there's one hell of a lot of time free.

And you're not supposed to check the kids' homework and get the dishwasher fixed and whatnot in that time either.

Playing 3-4 hours a day isn't going to cut down on your time actually doing your duties.

Also not the least because, well, your commanding officer isn't like the kind of permissive mommy who's totally not bothered if you skipped tidying your room to play games and expects the politicians to police her kids. Those guys _are_ those policing you there and seeing to it that you obey your orders to the letter.