Standard-issue: Study says videogames may help soldiers through post-combat stress

Posted March 11, 2011 by Matthew Lee in News.

It’s always fun when someone in academia offers a possible reason why we ought to play more games, but they’re generally fairly vague – may improve reaction times, decision-making abilities, this and that. Here’s one a little more serious. A Canadian researcher at the University of Edmonton (who presented at GDC 2011) suggests videogames may be able to help soldiers cope with the psychological stresses of combat.

No, not in the sense that hahaha, now I can’t distinguish between fantasy and reality. As reported by NewScientist (via GamePolitics) Jayne Gackenbach chose two groups of otherwise psychologically healthy servicemen, one of people who played games frequently, the others much more casually. The gist of her experiment is, while they all had dreams involving violence, the regular gamers apparently reported far fewer incidents of nightmares where they felt unable to fight back against whatever was threatening them.

While there’s still the issue of games or military service desensitising people, it seems like an interesting result nonetheless. If there really is any lasting benefit in having people face up to what’s frightening them in a virtual environment, there’s nothing saying it has to be saved for the army, right?

Tagged as GDC 2011, Psychology, Study, US Military, Videogame violence