Changing Behavior With Video Games
Saving the World, One Video Game at a Time
by Clive Thompson
Peacemaker
In the video game, Peacemaker, participants take the roles of either the Israeli prime minister or the Palestinian president, develop and execute a strategy to deal with the conflict, and play to completion.
While Peacemaker has no direct link to medicine, it has at least two elements with potential healthcare applications.
- Peacemaker reflects real life. For example, tactics that benefit Israel typically anger Palestine, causing reactions that are harmful to Israel, who can, in turn, retaliate. The game can be repeated, allowing players to audition different tactics and experience the varying outcomes, ranging from peaceful resolution to catastrophic violence.
- Peacemaker is designed to change beliefs and behavior. Entertainment and competition are, in this case, means to an end. The ultimate goals are understanding and adaptability.
Asi Burak, who helped develop the game, notes
… people get very engaged. They really try very hard to get a solution. Even after one hour or two hours, they’d come to me and say, you know, I know more about the conflict than when I’ve read newspapers for 10 years.
Healthcare Applications
Video game concepts have, of course, been used to promote healthcare in numerous ways, including, for example, promoting sociopolitical policies, distracting those suffering from chronic pain, teaching rudiments of a treatment regimen, and enhancing neuromuscular development. As far as I can determine, however, adherence to treatment has not been a target although the potential benefit seems obvious.
A long lamented problem with an impact on treatment compliance has been the difficulty in effectively educating patients. A process such as video games that engages players and allows them to safely experience in an hour the likely outcome of following, not following, or partially following a treatment plan for a given disorder would seem to hold significant promise for at least some proportion of adults as well as adolescents and children who may be less responsive to traditional didactic methods.
Related Posts:
