Results from a study undertaken at the East Carolina University has confirmed that playing casual games (at least PopCap Games, anyway) reduces stress. From one of the doctors involved in the study:

"I've conducted many clinical studies in the area of recreational therapy in the past, but this was the first one seeking to determine the potential therapeutic value of video games. The results of this study are impressive and intriguing, given the extent of the effects of the games on subjects' stress levels and overall mood. When coupled with the very high degree of confidence we have in those results based on the methodology and technologies used, I believe there is a wide range of therapeutic applications of casual games in mood-related disorders such as depression and in stress-related disorders including diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

Some numbers:

Bejeweled 2 was found to reduce stress activity by 54% compared to the control group. Peggle and Bookworm Adventures did not reduce subjects' physical stress levels significantly but did affect psychological tension, depression and other aspects of mood, in some cases dramatically (see below).

The press release has more information. Nice to see a positive article about the benefits of gaming for a change, although I assume everyone is a little busy mowing down pedestrians in Grand Theft Auto 4, now that it's out.

Haha some games make you more stressed, like ones where you know if you f*** up you have to do the last half an hour of the mission again...

I reckon Tetris would be high on the stress metre. Also that old game from the 80's, Jet Set Willy. There were so many unfair deaths in that game I never got to finish it.

Yeah, It's pretty easy to rage quit trackmania

I know I feel less stressed after a few sweet headshots with the 50cal.

Good to see that they've linked to the actual results, but they've been presented in a way that is difficult to follow without someone talking you through what sort of tests they ran. Some of the "significant" findings are rather questionable too, eg. they have used an alpha level of p=.10 for significance testing. There is also no mention there of the sample (how are they "randomized"?) or the procedure used, other than participants only seemed to play the games for 5 minutes, meaning that these results may be unreliable for gaming longer than that.

I'd take this research with a grain of salt until it was reviewed and published in a journal.

PS. I'm sure even the people who conducted the study wouldn't use such certain terms as "Casual Games Scientifically Proven to Relieve Stress", considering there is still a large margin of error. Therefore, the title of the article and this thread is misleading - nuke/ban.

And this is why I don't trust scientists.

there was this article last month, Brain Training seen as hot industry of the future. it claims that while some computer products have been shown to improve memory and other brain stuff (eloquence?) and to stave off age related mental decline, this has not been proven with consumer games, only with computer based tools generally due to the cost involved in proving, and the fat profits to be made in just releasing more titles that are going to be bought anyway because they are fun and people feel they help them, or at least not harm.

PS. I'm sure even the people who conducted the study wouldn't use such certain terms as "Casual Games Scientifically Proven to Relieve Stress", considering there is still a large margin of error. Therefore, the title of the article and this thread is misleading - nuke/ban.

That's the press release title; if you actually read the PR as advised (noting, at the time, that it is clearly labeled as a press release) you will see the actual study is due for release in a peer-review journal later in the year.

In reality, this post was a trap for psychology students and everything was carefully worded so that I could defend against their vicious attacks!

I clicked both links in your post and they took me to the same place, so I assume you mean THAT is the press release. Anyone can say that they'll have a study published in a peer-review journal, it is another thing to actually have it reviewed, make changes and THEN have it published. I assume you also read the press release and noted that the contact for the study is actually a PopCap employee? Fail. (ergo it was most likely the popcap people saying the "proven" bit... which academically/scientifically is a stupid thing to say)

last edited by B.Hardball at 13:37:14 29/Apr/08

I assume PopCap funded the study (probably just by providing copies of the games) and payed for the press release. Do you want me to contact them and ask for a more detailed press release so you can rebut their claims? I don't think they'd go to the lengths of running a 6 month study just for larks; there has to be some valid content behind their claims OTHER than the obvious fact that it makes sense

They finally figured this out?

I assume PopCap funded the study (probably just by providing copies of the games) and payed for the press release. Do you want me to contact them and ask for a more detailed press release so you can rebut their claims? I don't think they'd go to the lengths of running a 6 month study just for larks; there has to be some valid content behind their claims OTHER than the obvious fact that it makes sense

While I agree for the most part that the study does make sense, it also makes a lot of sense that it is highly unlikely a PopCap-funded study would ever show that PopCap games does not have this sort of effect. (Also, quite often scientific studies show the exact opposite of intuition or common sense, which is why a lot of basic studies like this are conducted.) If you could email the guy and find out more about the recruiting of participants and procedure used then that would be great;) Otherwise I'll just have to wait with baited breath until it does or does not get accepted by a peer-reviewed journal and get published. I'm not saying that the study is s***, I'm pointing out that just because they use fancy words doesn't make the results any more reliable or valid, unless they can fully back it up with other info.

While I agree for the most part that the study does make sense, it also makes a lot of sense that it is highly unlikely a PopCap-funded study would ever show that PopCap games does not have this sort of effect.

Well, I would assume that rather than have a study publish fake results, it would be easier to simply not send out a press release!

SoF: Payback is possibly the most stressful game EVER

Well, I would assume that rather than have a study publish fake results, it would be easier to simply not send out a press release!

Or you could run an experiment in such a way so you're guaranteed to get significant results that positively reflect whatever product you're trying to sell;)

Also often the actual results of the study completely contradict teh press release and even the preamble of the study, but luckily no one reads the results anyway.

And I guess if you are pwning it's less stressful

"there have actually been studies showing that when shown the results of a psychological experiment, most people think the results were obvious. And yet - when people are asked to predict the results of those same experiments, they're no better at it than chance. Hindsight is 20/20". -- porcupine8.

Nice one natslovr.

I think the biggest fault of this study that has a huge impact on its validity is that they only tested people on games for 5 minutes, when most people might play them for much longer than that.

Also did you say the used a confidence interval of .1%? That would be a bit bodgy, most people would mark it at .05%

games played as RECREATION reduce stress

WHOWOULDATHOUGHT

Also did you say the used a confidence interval of .1%? That would be a bit bodgy, most people would mark it at .05%

They used .1 and their explanation as to why didn't really make much sense to me.

games played as RECREATION reduce stress

WHOWOULDATHOUGHT

Already the results have been taken out of context!@!! They reduce PHYSICAL stress as measured by photoplethesmography... whatever the hell that is.

Physical Stress changes recorded using photoplethesmography to monitor heart rate variability (HRV).

Things like heart rate are usually unreliable measures of how someone is feeling - eg. you heart rate increases when you're excited and happy, but it also increases when you're scared and about to die. So, in this study, they might have assumed that a decrease in heart rate variability means you're less stressed (I'm just assuming because the slides didn't go into much detail), however it could be because you're more bored. Therefore, the results would be a reflection of boredom, not stress reduction.

They also have a misspelt word in their slides!

Yeah, It's pretty easy to rage quit trackmania

?!?!?!

Ragequitting Tm would require some serious anger and coordination issues.