If you’ve been paying attention to the news recently, video games have once again come under attack by those who either don’t understand them or have a stigma of “what they do to kids and teens,” and thus are using them as a scapegoat for certain issues that are popping up today. In a word: it’s annoying. Video games are awesome, and can serve as inspiration, stress relief, and are just fun to play by yourself and with friends. Thankfully, some scientists noticed this and decided to do a study using Breath of the Wild and Studio Ghibli films to see how they can help those who are not exactly in the best mental state.
Before you ask, yes, this WAS a real study, with a clear goal and objective, and even a very specific group of test subjects to see just how much games and certain anime films affect people. Here’s the “Objective” that the study proposed:
“This study aimed to examine the extent to which open-world games, such as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and nostalgia evoked by Studio Ghibli films, such as Hayao Miyazaki’s My Neighbor Totoro or Kiki’s Delivery Service, affect postgraduate students’ sense of exploration, calm, mastery and skill, purpose and meaning, and, ultimately, happiness in life.”
See? Very specific. So, what were the results? Simply put, those who both played BOTW and watched Studio Ghibli films, or both one after the other, had a more positive mental state afterward. They even stated that they had a “calm in life” and while also feeling “purpose and meaning.”
While this is only one study, it does show that video games CAN help people, and that’s something we should all praise and point out often.
Source: JMIR Serious Games
