Computer and Video Games in Mental Health

Due to the breakthrough of new technological devices in the last decade, electronic media has now become an integral part of our lives. Among its various forms, playing video games is one screen-based recreational activity enjoyed across various age groups and genders. Although undoubtedly entertaining, there is a considerable debate over the relative impact of video gaming on an individual. Traditionally, the research has focused on the negative effects of playing video games, but recent studies show that they can be an effective tool to reduce stress caused by daily hassles, help connect with likeminded people, and enhance a wide range of cognitive skills. There is also a small pool of research on the use of commercial video games in a therapeutic capacity to help build rapport and provide social skill training. This manuscript is focused on reviewing the pertinent research of the last two decades and from various online sources of scientific information on the abovementioned aspects of electronic and video games, their therapeutic implications in mental health, and suggesting future research directions

Socially Beneficial Metaverse: Framework, Technologies, Applications, and Challenges

In recent years, the maturation of emerging technologies such as Virtual Reality, Digital twins, and Blockchain has accelerated the realization of the metaverse. As a virtual world independent of the real world, the metaverse will provide users with a variety of virtual activities that bring great convenience to society. In addition, the metaverse can facilitate digital twins, which offers transformative possibilities for the industry. Thus, the metaverse has attracted the attention of the industry, and a huge amount of capital is about to be invested. However, the development of the metaverse is still in its infancy and little research has been undertaken so far. We describe the development of the metaverse. Next, we introduce the architecture of the socially beneficial metaverse (SB-Metaverse) and we focus on the technologies that support the operation of SB-Metaverse. In addition, we also present the applications of SB-Metaverse. Finally, we discuss several challenges faced by SB-Metaverse which must be addressed in the future.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures, 3 table

Kuinka videopelit vaikuttavat ihmisiin

Videopelien vaikutukset ovat olleet kiivaan keskustelun aiheena viimevuosina. Näistä vaikutuksista on vain vähän kiistatonta näyttöä, sillä tutkimusten tulokset ovat usein ristiriidassa toistensa kanssa. Tämä tutkielma sisältää kirjallisuuskatsauksen ja meta-analyysin aiheesta ja sitä käsittelevästä tutkimuksesta. Kirjallisuuskatsaukseen sisältyi monenlaisia julkaisuja, mm. laboratoriotutkimuksia, Internetissä suoritettuja kyselyjä, ja meta-analyysejä. Tässä tutkielmassa käydään läpi merkittävimpiä ja mielenkiintoisimpia löydöksiä ja teorioita, jotka kirjallisuuskatsauksessa nousivat esille. Myös psykologian alan julkaisuja oli tarpeen käsitellä jonkin verran, sillä ihmisen reaktiot videopeleihin ovat luonnollisesti osa ihmisen psykologiaa. Kirjallisuuden analyysissä luodaan tarkempi katsaus videopelien vaikutuksia koskevaan tutkimukseen ja erityisesti sen ongelmakohtiin, sekä pohditaan millä keinoilla tutkimusta voitaisiin muuntaa objektiivisempaan suuntaan. Analyysissä myös hahmotellaan miten tutkimusten tuloksia voitaisiin tehokkaammin hyödyntää muun muassa terveydenhuollossa ja opetuskäytössä. Tutkimusten tulokset nimittäin viittaavat siihen, että videopelien haittavaikutuksia olisi todennäköisesti mahdollista estää, mikäli niihin osataan varautua. Tutkielman päähavainto on, että videopelien vaikutuksia tulee tutkia jatkossakin; monien havaittujen vaikutusten toimintamekanismit ovat vielä epäselviä, ja tästä syystä sekä haittavaikutusten estämisessä että positiivisten vaikutusten valjastamisessa on runsaasti tilaa kehitykselle

An Elicitation Method for Technology-Assisted Goal Setting: Combating Problematic Social Networks Use as a Case Study.

Now that digital media has become an integral part of our everyday lives, people spend significant time using it for various purposes, including social networking and gaming. There is increasing acceptance in the literature of the link between obsessive, compulsive, and excessive usage of social media, e.g. social networks, and the wellbeing of users, whether personal, economic, or social. Despite the research on the negative experiences linked to problematic social networking usage, the work on how to regulate such an effect is at a preliminary stage. In the literature on behavioural change, technology-assisted solutions that utilise the concept of behavioural goals have started to appear, such as gamification and persuasive technology, mainly to increase motivation for change. Also, the literature has revealed that social networks can be augmented with functionalities to assist those seeking to regulate their problematic usage. When technology is used to assist behavioural change, e.g. apps for diet and smoking cessation, requirements become behavioural. While there are established methods for capturing business requirements in organisational information systems, characterised mainly by being a desired and declared state of the system, capturing behavioural requirements, such as goals, requires a different approach to the entire engineering lifecycle. Behavioural requirements gathering and validation would require dealing with issues of unreliability and denial present in problematic behaviours. Therefore, this thesis aims to provide a method expressly tailored to the elicitation of behavioural requirements. The method will be supported by the goal setting strategy and its associated elements. In order to attain this aim, this thesis followed a qualitative research approach with experts, practitioners, and end-users who self-declared having problematic social networking usage and seeking help. This process includes literature reviews, focus group sessions, experts' and practitioners' interviews, user interviews, and analysis of extended survey comments. Research conducted resulted in reference checklists for common goal setting elements, a taxonomy of the negative life experiences associated with problematic usage, and users' perceptions of the use of technology to assist goal setting. The results of the studies helped to propose a method to support users in specifying their goal-setting design requirements. The thesis then evaluated the proposed method with representative users who self-declared having problematic social network usage. The evaluation aimed to investigate the method’s effectiveness, whether it covers all the goal-setting elements, and how communication should work between study participants