Gaming good for post traumatic stress?

by **Andy** Thu 10 Mar 2011 - 10:00

Video games tend to get the short end of the stick when it comes to the media's portrayal of them. Violent video games in particular have been labeled as the cause for school shootings, violence in society and many armed crimes. While these reports are often backed by little or no scientific research, the popular opinion seems to consistently be against the games that we love.

In a surprising contrast to those reports, Jayne Gackenbach of Grant MacEwan University in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada has released preliminary results from a study of soldiers, with no pre-determined medical conditions, to see the effects of video games on real-life infantry. The study placed soldiers into two groups, based on how often they played video games; 'high gaming' and 'low gaming'.

The results of the preliminary study showed that gamers who played video games once a day or at least many times a week had significantly less traumatic nightmares of their time in combat and could fight back against their enemies in their nightmares, while soldiers who gamed casually would have terrible nightmares where they were unable to fight back against their aggressors.

Now, of course, a study like this is not all-inclusive but certainly makes you wonder if violent video games are getting an unfair treatment by the media. We can only hope that, in the future, studies like this are taken into account before journalists blame tragedies on violence in media.

[New Scientist]