Alum Jane McGonigal on Your Brain in Video Games
Frank Lantz, Director of the NYU Game Center, recently published an article on Quartz regarding the relationship between your brain and video games.
He argues that are three distint ways of looking at just how our brains interact with video games: the optimist, the pessimist, and the artist.
He quotes BCNM alumnus and game designer Jane McGonigal in his work. Taking an optimistic approach "emphasizes the miraculous positive power of gaming" that makes us "smarter, happier, improves our mood, elevates our energy level, protects us from psychological damage, helps us recover from neurological trauma, facilitate social coordination, and allows us to combine imagination, emotion, and analytical reason."
“What if we started to live our real lives like gamers, lead our real businesses and communities like game designers, and think about solving real-world problems like computer and video game theorists?” asks game designer and futurist Jane McGonigal.
She sees gaming as a way for people to better experience reality.
Read the full article here for Lantz's breakdown of the other approaches.