{"id":1499,"date":"2022-10-02T00:06:00","date_gmt":"2022-10-02T00:06:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/premdm\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2022-10-28T20:48:21","modified_gmt":"2022-10-28T20:48:21","slug":"mental-health-and-digital-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/2022\/10\/02\/mental-health-and-digital-media\/","title":{"rendered":"Mental Health and Digital Media<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Written by Antai Liu 2022 Cohort<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All media can infect people because it contains information. All information creates feelings and experiences. These feelings and experiences will become our memories. Our memories define who we are. Considering people\u2019s mental health, media should bring positive and healthy experiences to their users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Games as interactive media will create even more vivid feelings and experiences. So video game developers and designers should focus more on players\u2019 mental health. One of these experiences happened when I first played Tomb Raider. There was a part where Lara had to climb on a very high mast to find a radio signal. When we got to the top, iI felt shocked. This part gave me a sense of achievement, and in my opinion, this feeling brought me confidence and the courage to challenge difficulties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another game that impressed me was The Last of Us and the famous giraffe scene. It made me feel deeply. I believe many players had a similar stance. These two experiences I consider mentally beneficial. Because they both made me and others feel good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The design team of these games made much effort on these scenes and polished every tiny detail. The similarity between the two is that they all have a pretty long buildup in challenges and a sudden emotional break, accompanied by perfectly fitting background music. It seems like a textbook storytelling method used by many movies and novels. But in these two cases, they work exceptionally well. I think the magic is hidden in all small details such as music notes, the obstacles in the buildup part, characters’ reactions to the player, etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, we are now faced with another problem, feelings and experiences are different for different people. In that giraffe scene, a player scared of giraffes may not have the same \u201cgood\u201d experience. \u00a0On the other hand, how should we avoid designs which are not beneficial for mental health? In games, people pursue things they cannot do in the real world. The two scenes I mentioned before are also complex or impossible to come across in the real world. People who play non-violent games also want to find new experiences and thrills. So the topic of how we make games more mentally positive and avoid enticing players\u2019 \u201cdemons\u201d inside has taken a life to its own. Banning all violence in games is not the solution. Sometimes the news will present things like \u201cvideo game players shooting people in real life\u201d; it\u2019s unfortunate but let\u2019s not place all the blame on games. I\u2019ll admit that some could influence people the wrong way; that is what we should learn to avoid. It’s what we should study more about and apply solutions in our games.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Resource: https:\/\/www.riseservices.org\/the-impact-of-social-media-on-mental-health\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Written by Antai Liu 2022 Cohort All media can infect people because it contains information. All information creates feelings and<\/p>\n

Continue readingMental Health and Digital Media<\/strong><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[88,153],"tags":[57,66,28],"class_list":["post-1499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-reviews","category-mental-health","tag-digital-media","tag-psychology","tag-video-games"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1499"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1507,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1499\/revisions\/1507"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.thecdm.ca\/techspeak\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}