Video Games as Stress Relieving

When I began playing my video game, my choice of Age of Empires III was based on a hypothesis and theme very similar to the CivWorld website (though I did not know about the CivWorld website at the time, and it is actually very interesting that we where both depicting the same hypothesis for the educational value of the games, but completely independently). Here is the quote from the main page of their website: "This is a site for people interested in using Sid Meier's Civilization for learning academic content, including history, geography, or even game design. We have custom-designed game scenarios, curricula, case studies, and experts on using Civ for learning. Our goal is to help players, students, parents, and even teachers use the game at home, in after school centers and maybe even classrooms." (http://www.civworld.gameslearningsociety.org/index.php) In other words, they stole my hypothesis (not true, since their website was up and ready long before I ever came up with the idea for my project). My original theme is stated above in quotations better than I could ever have stated it myself. But then I ran into a problem: as I played through Age of Empires III, the "Campaigns" the game guides the player through (which had been so historically interesting in Age of Empires II) began to deviate from actual historical figures to "fictionalized history and meta-physics." At one point, you are battling the Persian civilization in Colonial Florida as you search for "magic ponds of water." Not good. If schools want to teach accurate information that does not mislead their students, then this is not the game for schools. So... problem. My thesis basically went out the window (at least for Age of Empires III). So I expanded my theme somewhat, venturing to play more of the "Age of ... " series I had not played before. I acquired Age of Mythology and its Expansion pack, and began to play. Here was my thesis at least partially re-realized, as Age of Mythology at lease takes the player through scenarios described in Homer's Odyssey and Iliad (perhaps useful to any high school teacher trying to teach this subject matter, just as a possibly interesting visual depiction of certain subject matter as an attempt to get students interested). However, really my overall thesis had taken a serious blow. And I began to write my papers on new ideas: subjects I knew well such as "how video games really are helpful in Computer Science education" and "how simulations and modeling used in Engineering often border on games, and are likely only needing to be classified as "fun" by their users in order to be classified as such." However, and this is the purpose of this blog post, I still continued to play the "Age of ..." games even though they weren't really helping me for the class anymore. I played well over the 50 hours required. Why is this? The real reason is, after I would finish with a large project for another class, I would pop in "Age of ..." in order to "relax" and "reward myself." My brother also finds video games "relaxing" and "stress relieving," and I know other people who feel the same way about them. Why is this? This is a strong contrast to how many of my friends felt about high school. High school stressed them out, and they could not wait to get out of there at 2pm. Video games are like a "drug" or a "therapeutic device" in this sense that they promote "relaxation." It used to be since the 1950's perhaps, that a person would come home from a stressful day and turn on the TV and just "veg out" and "relax." However, in the present age, more and more young people use a video game for the same purpose. How is it that video games are able to "change the state" of the user? Because, actually, it is my experience that the right video game is actually better at this than TV is. Perhaps it is because the TV still allows the viewers "mind to wander" more than an engrossing video game. The "stress out" user at this stage is often looking of the "mind to be distracted" for a while. So many of my friends have described this use of video games for them, that they do use video games in someway as a "drug." But what are the ramifications for learning? Since certain video games are so good at putting the user into a "relaxing" or "engrossing" state, perhaps this has some applications for education. Perhaps certain students learn better when they are placed into a relaxed state. Perhaps the admission that video games are more "engrossing" than TV is similar to an admission that video games are more engrossing than simply watching a teacher lecture. Anyway, this is a very interesting idea I would like to explore further if only I had more time.