A Randomized Controlled Study Measuring the Effectiveness of Casual Video Games in Reducing Stress and Increasing Mood
-
1
East Carolina University , United States
Stress related medical disorders such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes and depression are serious medical issues that can cause disability and death. Interventions to prevent their development and exacerbation are needed. Casual video games (CVGs) are fun, easy to play, spontaneous and tremendously popular. People report that they play these games because they decrease their stress and improve their mood. This study tested this assumption by comparing people playing casual video games with control subjects measured under similar conditions. Electroencephalographic changes after game play were consistent with increased mood and corroborated similar findings on psychological reports. Moreover, heart rate variability changes consistent with autonomic nervous system relaxation or decreased physical stress were also recorded. It is concluded therefore that casual video games do increase mood and decrease stress. These finding have broad implications and include the potential development of prescriptive interventions using casual video games to prevent and treat stress related medical disorders. Finally, these findings demonstrate a method to understand the cybernetic interconnection between participant and video game play.
Conference:
Annual CyberTherapy and CyberPsychology 2009 conference, Villa Caramora, Italy, 21 Jun - 23 Jun, 2009.
Presentation Type:
Oral Presentation
Topic:
Oral Presentations
Citation:
Russionello
C,
O’Brien
K and
Parks
JM
(2009). A Randomized Controlled Study Measuring the Effectiveness of Casual Video Games in Reducing Stress and Increasing Mood.
Front. Neuroeng.
Conference Abstract:
Annual CyberTherapy and CyberPsychology 2009 conference.
doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.14.2009.06.091
Copyright:
The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers.
They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters.
The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated.
Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed.
For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions.
Received:
23 Mar 2009;
Published Online:
23 Mar 2009.
*
Correspondence:
Carmen Russionello, East Carolina University, Greenville, United States, russonielloc@ecu.edu