Tetris and PTSD?!?!

 

Wow.

John and Sarah have been playing Tetris a LOT recently to help relax after school. Now there's THIS to supplement their obsession.

 

It seems that the pathways for playing Tetris are very similar to the pathways that ingrain disturbing memories. (Maybe this is why russians are heartless...) So, this study showed that playing Tetris within 4 hours after an exposure to a disturbing movie resulted in fewer flashbacks compared to a group that played a quiz sort of program.

Here's the study with the control group that did nothing post "disturbing movie"

Again, Tetris helped reduce reported flashbacks.

 

My questions,

 

How old were these people?

(18-47 mean=23, all male) There's a big surprise. All males wanting to paticipate in a study involving video games and traumatic images?

 

Do you think that the fact that these were 23 year old males made a difference on whether or not they would be affected at all?

Maybe not, the control group was effected by the videos reporting intrusions a week after.

 

What if by playing Tetris they simply "forgot" the videos?

Nope, they tested for that. Both groups were about the same.

 

Playing Tetris can help you forget the bad, but remember the event. Wow.

 

So watch that scary movie, then grab an NES so you don't have nightmares.