Two elements of children and video games are covered in this show. First I summarize a recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation on media use by children 8 to 18. By looking at all media use by children we can contextualize their use of video games. Following this, you’ll hear an interview made at the 2011 Games for Health conference with a game developer who produces games for children. Karen Littman is president and founder of Morphonix, a game development company in Sausalito, California. For 20 years her company has been mostly devoted to developing a series of neuroscience games that teach children and teens basic concepts about brain science but in an entertaining way.

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Tad Stach is a computer science doctoral student at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. Tad’s current research is in the field of human-computer interaction. I interviewed him during the Game Developers conference. Tad is exploring how exercise can be improved through computer-mediated physical activity. More specifically, he is interested in facilitating more effective group or exergames. In this show you’ll discover an entirely new way to approach exercise. As mentioned in my last show it’s more enjoyable to exercise if you do it with your friends. However, it can be hard to find a suitable partner to do exercise games with because sedentary people already have low self efficacy. That is, they do not believe that they can exercise and enjoy it. This can be demoralizing as they cannot keep up with the people who are exercising around them. Thus Tad is looking at multiplayer exergames. Here the exercise is computer mediated and thus you can balance for any differences in physical abilities and you can exercise with friends online.

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Gamification is the use of game play mechanics for non-game applications. It works by making technology more engaging and by encouraging desired behaviors, taking advantage of humans’ psychological predisposition to engage in activities that are fun and rewarding. This shows guest is Judy Shasek, managing director of Healthy Community Development in the Eugene, OR area. She has applied the ideas of gamification to community involvement. Her interest in this application was sparked by Jane McGonigal, author of Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World. In McGonigal’s book she spends a considerable amount of time explaining various alternate reality game projects. In other words, how can we apply the principles of video game play, which has proven to be wildly popular, to real world problems. This process of gamification, or alternative reality games, offers potential to open up so many healthful projects to wider participation. You’ll learn something about how to apply these principles for your projects in this show with Judy Shasek.

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In this show the principles of gaming and practice in virtual realms are illustrated with the work of Dr. Glenn Albright, of Kognito Interactive. He talks about a role-playing game he has helped develop “to train family members of returning veterans to (1) recognize when their loved one is exhibiting signs of post-deployment stress including signs of PTSD, TBI, depression, and thoughts of suicide and (2) approach and talk to the Veteran about their concern and motivate them to seek help at the local VA medical center”. He explains that the user “assumes the role of various family members and engages in conversations with three emotionally responsive Veteran Avatars that exhibit signs of post-deployment stress. The avatars visually and verbally express emotions in reaction to users’ decisions in the conversations, effectively replicating real life interactions and conversations with at-risk individuals.”

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This show is coming to you from the annual Games for Health meeting. This is a group of researchers, developers and service workers who are examining video game play as a way to service health needs. This show starts with a brief summary of the keynote by Martin Seligmann, world renowned positive psychology innovator. Then there is an interview with Debra Lieberman of the University of California, Santa Barbara. She is director of the Health Games Research initiative. In our interview we talk about the field of health games and of the psychology of avatars. These are our online characters. They can be a game based character, or facebook information, or an alias in a chat room. Our identification with these characters is part of the reason why they can benefit or possibly harm our offline selves.

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This time Jayne reviews her own research into the effects of gaming on nighttime dreams as well as her thesis that gaming can be framed as a type of meditative experience. She then interviews Moses Silbiger, a gamer and integral coach and consultant, whose master’s thesis topic explored spirituality and gaming from Ken Wilber’s Integral Psychology perspective.

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Is video game addiction simply drug free coping or is it the ultimate expression of play? While the Chinese are taking action against extreme video game play, there are also concerns in many households in North America that gamers play at the expense of the rest of their lives. The research has shown that while this is possible, it is rare, 11% of gamers can be considered addicted. What is more likely the concern of parents and partners is that gaming takes up too much of their time. This can be a fair concern depending on the life context into which it plays. In this show Jayne briefly reviews the research on video game addiction and then conducts an interview with a game developer and doctoral student, Nis Bojin, about the nature of play. His article “Play and the Private” is interesting and relevant reading. Too much play can of course be problematic but so can too little.

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To some it seems quite obvious that playing a video game is relaxing while for others this claim may seem like an oxymoron, an obvious contradiction. As it turns out there is now substantive research supporting the notion that video game play can be quite relaxing. This show is a conversation with Dr. Carmen Russoniello who is at the forefront of the research on casual games and their relaxing benefits. An Associate Professor at East Carolina University, Dr. Russoniello explains how he was approached by a major game developer to explore why their games were selling so well. What he discovered is the heart of this discussion and is revolutionizing how we view video game play.

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Communication Studies has examined the history of the introduction to all new media from poetry to the printing press to video game play and what is remarkably consistent is that fear seems to accompany each media when first introduced. In the case of video game play, like television, the emphasis of this fear has been on modeling aggression. In part this has been based on a large body of research into modeling effects of television so that one could say the pump was primed. Indeed the research summaries by Anderson and Bushman supports the basic contention that playing violent and aggressive video games increases various indices of aggression from doing harm to being numbed by violence to a decrease in helping behaviour. However, this work while some of the best methodologically in psychology, has recently come into serious criticism. While the effect can happen, there is a list of reasons why it does not happen or does not happen as severely as feared. These are addressed in this show based upon an excellent article by Christopher Ferguson. Additionally, there is an interview with Miguel Sicart of the University of Copenhaugen and author of The Ethics of Computer Games who speaks about the limits that gamers will tolerate for in game violence.

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Ever wonder what’s the truth and what’s media hype regarding video games? This show will answer your questions. In this first one, a brief overview of some of the most pertinent and controversial issues surrounding video games today are touched upon. Ranging from the misconceptions of how video games and violence affect our children to how the dreams of gamers show signs of lucidity. The host provides a broad spanning overview of the many issues affecting, not only gamers and game culture, but also how video games contribute to the very evolution of our minds, our society and our dreams.

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