Tetris: The game that could help addicts fight against addiction
A new study shows that playing Tetris regularly could help people with addictions to better resist their impulses.
The lighthouse Nintendo game on the Game Boy blew its thirty candles last year, but it could well experience a second surge thanks to a recent study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors. According to British researchers, Tetris could be a remedy to combat various addictions. It is unclear how aligning a red square, a blue bar and a green T could help to resist uncontrolled habits, but it seems the results prove they could be on to something.
THERAPEUTIC TETRIS
This is not the first time that this video game is being studied for its health virtues. It was already commended for its positive effects on the management of painful memories. It had also shown results in helping to regulate eating disorders during laboratory experiments. In this new study, the researchers took the next step and agreed on the positive effects of Tetris on multiple addictions in everyday life.
31 students suffering from various addictions were recruited and were equipped with an iPod each so they can bring around and use it, if they had any desire to succumb to their addictions (such as tobacco, alcohol, coffee etc.) or transfer to another addiction (sex, sports, video games). This was to measure the intensity of their desire, and factors included when was the last time they succumbed to the addiction and finally, if they had been drinking before responding.
Half of the students were simply reporting the facts, while the other half were instructed to play Tetris for 3 minutes and then note down any changes. Appraisal: playing Tetris would decrease the intensity of the desire (whatever the type of addiction in the list above) by 13.9% on average, and this effect lasted throughout the experiment, which was conducted for a week. For researchers, this is the first evidence that a cognitive visual stimulation is effective in fighting addiction in everyday life.
Maureen Diament and Nur Syazana H.
