Video games are bad for you? That’s what they said about rock-n-roll.
– Shigeru Miyamoto (1952), creator of Super Mario and creative director of Nintendo
Federica Pallavicini, blue eyes and straight blond hair, smiles back at me from my computer screen. A post-doctoral research fellow at the Department of Human Sciences for Education of the University of Milan-Bicocca, for ten years she has been studying the psychology of virtual reality and new methods to combine virtual reality and gaming in the treatment of mental illness. We have met several times in our life, and I knew that when I decided to write about video games and mental health I would need her to make sense of this world. I was never cut out for video games. From Tetris to Super Mario, passing through all the five versions of Street Fighter, I always got bored after ten minutes. Even the candy-coloured, graphically intoxicating Bubble Bobble, where you have to shoot shiny marbles at other shiny marbles in order to continue to shoot shiny marbles, didn’t do for me. And yet, this completely alien world which I look at with a vague sense of snobbery (video games? How gross…gimme Shakespeare please) holds some surprises even for the harshest detractors like myself.
People play video games because they’re fun, but the fun, says this study from 2014, in some ways is a by-product of the feeling of well-being that comes from being immersed in an alternative reality with which we can interact, in which we can choose who or what to be, and for which the same moral codes that apply in “real life” no longer apply. Video games allow us to be the best version of ourselves (trying to be, for example, braver or more generous) or to ideally approach what we would like to be. They liberate us from a world of restrictions and allow us simply to “be”. It works because, at the end of the day, what we want in life is simply to exist.
Given their ability to emotionally engage the player, video games are often used in the healthcare industry to help patients. An app for diabetics called MySugr‘, for example, helps diabetics keep glucose levels at bay through a game in which diabetes is a Tamagotchi-like monster that can be defeated through doses of insulin. On an even more immersive level, some video games are created to help with states of depression and anxiety in adults, or to engage patients in rehabilitation programs that have little success when done face-to-face. The P2P (Play2Prevent) Lab at the Yale Center for Health & Learning Games has been developing video games for young people for ten years, to help them in quitting smoking, or to combat the spread of STDs.
More immersive is the game, more powerful is the experience, and virtual reality allows gaming to step up on a more intense and totalizing level. “Both video games and virtual reality are very helpful in regards to relaxation and stress management” Federica explains. “With a video game like PacMan, which is easy to learn, I can distract the patients, make them focus on another stimulus rather than on their pain, and generate happiness”. Winning a game, overcoming an obstacle, improving one’s skills are positive sensations that give us a rush of endorphin to the brain, and experiencing these kinds of emotions triggers an overall positive response not only from a mental, but also from a biological, point of view. A bit like taking a walk in the mountains, or going to the beach for a day. It is no coincidence that many experiences in VR are set in natural surroundings. “The Secret Garden” continues `Federica “is a good example of immersive content that aims to make the people relax. The simulation is set in a zen garden, and within it there is a mindfulness narrative, which is another effective and well researched psychological technique for relaxation”.
Just as video games can make us feel more skilled or braver, so virtual reality can put us in someone else’s shoes, to see life -and our choices- from another perspective. “This year,” Federica explains, “I saw so much work on racism. Immersive experiences have been created to explain from a minority perspective the history of phenomena related to racism, and it’s completely different than watching a video or reading a book about the topic. You can actually feel what it means to be discriminated”. There are also simulations on dementia, to understand how a person with cognitive impairment feels, on environmental issues and sexism. Not surprisingly, virtual reality is also called the empathy machine.
I couldn’t resist asking her the boomer question “But isn’t it risky for children?”. “Under the age of 12, virtual reality should not be used” Federica explains, “because children have a very different perception of reality than adults. You risk making them live an experience that they would find difficult to distinguish from the real world. It’s much better for a child to play a non-immersive video game, with titles created specifically for younger age groups”.
Maybe I’ll never change my mind about video games, they’ll continue to bore me and I’ll continue to prefer something else to distract me or feel fulfilled. But if one day I could no longer go to the beach, or play sports, or do all those things that keep my spirit fulfilled and my mind aligned, wouldn’t I want to be given another chance to recreate that sense of inner satisfaction? “I would like to reiterate” Federica concludes, “that we often forget that we are privileged, because we can move around and decide freely what to do. This is not true for everyone. There are those who do not have such possibilities because of physical or mental limitations. Virtual reality as well as video games offer opportunities that would otherwise be unavailable to many people”. What we’re asking, in the end, is just really to exist.
Federica Pallavicini is the PI of MIND-VR, a virtual reality project focused on helping medical staff to cope with COVID-induced intense stress. The idea is part of the Ready Patient One program, designed to offer virtual-reality aid psychological support within hospitals.
Free Dive | Created for children with chronic illnesses, Free Dive is a virtual reality game in which kids can explore the seafloor, look for treasures and meet tropical fish.
Mango Health | The medical app that helps you take your meds and take care of yourself (it also reminds you to drink and take your sleeping pills…maybe a little too American for the European palate).
Deep VR | Incredible virtual reality game to control anxiety and stress. Deep VR is set as an exploration of the seafloor in which the rhythm of colours and immersive images changes with the breath of the player. Here is the trailer if you want to try.
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