Computer games and mental health

Hi all,

I remember my first job in psychiatry was with a general adult, community based team in ... well, perhaps I better not say. Most of the multidisciplinary team were ladies of, well, a certain age. There I was, new to psychiatry and with the paralysing shyness that comes with lack of clinical experience, somewhat dazzled in the team meetings. Anyway, the point of this nostalgic rambling beginning is that I recall that the team members had a pretty dim view of computer gaming. They might refer to a client/service user/patient's son as being a pretty likely future client/service user/patient themselves, based largely on their long hours of playing Championship Manager or whatever (I think I'm showing my age here)

It has been argued - most entertainingly by a chap called Steven Johnson in a book with the great title of "Everything Bad Is Good For You" - that computer games are part of a new, cognitively complex media landscape, that is in fact increasing our IQ and cognitive flexibility. You can read about this here:

http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2006/03/70487

and here:

http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.05/flynn.html?pg=1&topic=flynn&topic_set=

and indeed, here:

http://www.socialaffairsunit.org.uk/blog/archives/000687.php


"Fearfighter" is a program which "delivers" CBT over the internet - which you can read about here:

http://www.fearfighter.com/index.htm


You can read a less complimentary view of computer games here:

http://www.slate.com/id/2164065/

There is also a lot of interesting research going on about social networking websites and the like. It is interesting that there is a definite generational difference here. I am just too old to really "get" myspace and the like (and definitely too old for Bebo!) whereas the majority of you guys are presumably beboing away like mad. Whether this will have long term effects on social interaction or not, I don't know!