Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

cscaz.cansurround.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 189 posts

Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

#161

Post by HervalFreire »

mewpmewp2 wrote: post #156
HervalFreire wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://radiolab.org/episodes/91618-lying-to-ourselves What I'm saying is not something I made up. It's actual science. Listen to the podcast if you have the time. It's derived from actual multitudes of scientific research done on thousands of people. It's only 12 minutes and it's really good and it will change your perception of the importance of knowing the truth. This is real. And the experiments cited in this pod…

I was responding to your points. Is there any other specific point you want me to respond to? Because the arguments are that you can overestimate your capabilities or be overconfident to perform better, which I agree with, but my point is that none of it is indicative that someone having generally a positive view of the world necessarily implies that they would have less grasp on reality. I think the experiments are…

>but my point is that none of it is indicative that someone having generally a positive view of the world necessarily implies that they would have less grasp on reality.

From the podcast:

    Joanna: The people who were the most realistic, that actually see the world exactly as it is, tend to be slightly more depressed than others.

    Robert: Time and time again, researchers have found that depressed people lie less.

    Ruben: They see all the pain in the world. How horrible people are with each other and they tell you everything about themselves. What their weaknesses are, what terrible things they've done to other people and the problem is they're right....
That one research study they used as an example is one out of multitudes used to formulate the conclusion I cited above.

In short:

   People who tend to be realistic tend to be depressed. People who lie to themselves tend to be happy.
I mean it's obvious that this point contradicts your claim. Ask yourself, are you lying to yourself right now? Are you currently being optimistically delusional about what was actually stated in the podcast? Hard to say.

Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

#164

Post by mnky9800n »

HervalFreire wrote: post #132
r3trohack3r wrote: post #44

I thought this was going to be an article about optimism ("geeking out" as in getting excited about things). I acknowledge that I'm responding to the headline and not the meat of the article. I've recently (past ~5 years) stopped viewing the world pessimistically. I don't believe it's because I'm blindly optimistic, but because I didn't have the perspective to understand our ancestor's problems and how good of a life…

There was a science experiment where they took pessimists and optimists and had them rate themselves from one to ten in terms of looks. Then they had another external group of people rate them based off of the same 1 to 10 scale to get an unbiased baseline. Turns out pessimists had a more accurate and realistic rating around how good they looked. While optimists had ratings that were wildly overblown. There are other…

but it isn't a lie. everything you said here is biased by your perspective on reality. everything you read here is biased by your perspective. everything i understand you said is biased by my perspective. it is a wonder any of us at all are able to communicate with each other ideas using words and body language. it is quite possible that we are all non-overlapping cognitive bubbles traveling around interpreting input never actually connecting or understanding each other in any real way.

Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

#165

Post by cachecrab »

908B64B197 wrote: post #88
pathartl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few people in my circle that are overburdened by conspiracy theories to the point where they think that humans are corrupt and everyone is out to get them. It's exhausting to live like that. My goal is to be my 13 yr old self's hero. Do cool stuff, be in a good relationship, and fix things that bother me to the best of my ability.

Remember how, just a few months ago, one could get banned from Social media for suggesting Covid-19 originated in a lab? "Fact Checkers" were hard at work silencing that content and attributing it to "conspiracy theorists". Now the lab leak hypothesis is mainstream, with experts supporting investigating the labs in Wuhan and bringing in evidence that the disease indeed originated in a Chinese lab. Sometimes, it seems…

Lab leak != lab origination. It could have escaped the lab, but that doesn't mean it was created there.

Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

#166

Post by barrysteve »

908B64B197 wrote: post #88
pathartl wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a few people in my circle that are overburdened by conspiracy theories to the point where they think that humans are corrupt and everyone is out to get them. It's exhausting to live like that. My goal is to be my 13 yr old self's hero. Do cool stuff, be in a good relationship, and fix things that bother me to the best of my ability.

Remember how, just a few months ago, one could get banned from Social media for suggesting Covid-19 originated in a lab? "Fact Checkers" were hard at work silencing that content and attributing it to "conspiracy theorists". Now the lab leak hypothesis is mainstream, with experts supporting investigating the labs in Wuhan and bringing in evidence that the disease indeed originated in a Chinese lab. Sometimes, it seems…

Uhh. The facts are off the map for media companies and the government media.

Society alternates between 3 functions. Hiding away facts, milking good times and taking valuable resources off the map.

We're just the weird people who remember the old-school world, where the public knowing the facts was a point of order and the science would settle it all.

Conspiracies theories appear to sound the alarm on it all, but they have no unique, private facts to share with the public, just like everyone else.

Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

#167

Post by melagonster »

r3trohack3r wrote: post #44

I thought this was going to be an article about optimism ("geeking out" as in getting excited about things). I acknowledge that I'm responding to the headline and not the meat of the article. I've recently (past ~5 years) stopped viewing the world pessimistically. I don't believe it's because I'm blindly optimistic, but because I didn't have the perspective to understand our ancestor's problems and how good of a life…

I hope this will happen:) everyday, I read a post about AI on HN and then feel terrible... guess human still exists.

Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

#168

Post by fullsend »

si1entstill wrote: post #51
r3trohack3r wrote: post #44

I thought this was going to be an article about optimism ("geeking out" as in getting excited about things). I acknowledge that I'm responding to the headline and not the meat of the article. I've recently (past ~5 years) stopped viewing the world pessimistically. I don't believe it's because I'm blindly optimistic, but because I didn't have the perspective to understand our ancestor's problems and how good of a life…

I feel like I am and always have been a "day-to-day" optimist, but I struggle to apply that to larger, societal problems. Our impact on the environment is measurable and the impacts look dire. Income disparity seems to be increasing locally and globally. The military industrial complex of the largest nation-states feels eternal, as if it is a fundamental part of neoliberal capitalism. I can "half-full" almost everyth…

Because we are in fact so disconnected from our military today, modern people have forgotten that human civilization itself has been a military industrial complex forever. Not much to do with capitalism in particular.

Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

#169

Post by ladyattis »

rye-neat wrote: post #69

I'm nearing 40 and in the past few years I've tried to focus more on "real world" activities (I've never lacked them, I just felt like gaming had less value). I've done well with this by spending time with my interests/pastimes; however, my work lately has been less stimulating. As a result, something has been missing. Long story short, I realized I wasn't getting into a "flow-state" often enough and guess where you…

It's funny you speak of flow state here since for me reading up on MMORPG meta or any meta changes to any game is where I mostly focus on such that even before I launch a game I've been reading up on its mechanics and trying to understand it in an abstract way (the opposite of this for me is when I just play Stardew Valley since I just wanna fish or chat with the NPCs rather than figure out how to min-max my farm). The act of figuring out how a game works mechanically is just as fun as trying to play the game itself for me.

Re: Playing video games can help to reduce stress and anxiety, and improve mood

#170

Post by ladyattis »

I'm surprised the article didn't cover "life" or simulation games since these are often seem to be relaxing games compared to more frantic games like MMOs. For me, Stardew Valley is my comfort game when I just wanna to turn off thinking for a little bit and go fishing or chat with Linus by the lake. Or go on a gift giving run. It just seems like you can kind of turn off your head and go with the flow in the game rather than trying to min-max. I'm sure there's tons of videos for Stardew Valley that focus on min-maxing but I'm glad I just ignore them otherwise, I'd be restarting my game to do that, no thanks.
Post reply on HN