I’m not a gamer.  I enjoy video games, and I’ve spent quite a bit of time playing them, but I could probably count on one hand the games that I’ve played through to the end, and I don’t play regularly.  I play everything on “easy” (which would mortify some of my gamer friends), and I will often bore of a game in less than an hour.

But let me tell you something about video games…

They make me nicer.

I usually handle stress pretty well, but with work, school, a family, (and I seem to always be sick lately) it can build up.  And I can get a little ornery—not so much ornery, but less patient with people, more critical, and more opinionated.  I’m sure that there are a lot of things I could do to relieve the stress, but xbox is one of them.

I first noticed it about a year ago.  I took my x-box with me on the holiday vacation to play with my family.  The next two or three months were really busy, and I hadn’t even unpacked the console.   One day I had some free time, and wanted to play for a while.  (I think we had been talking about a game at work)  I pulled it all out, and spent maybe an hour or two playing that night.  The next day I was driving and realized that I felt good, I was relaxed, some of the tension in my neck and scalp were gone (I lose hair when I get stressed) and I was spontaneously smiling.  I tried to think what was different that day, and the thing that popped into my head was the video game.  I’ve tried to pay attention since, and when I play more often, stress doesn’t build up as much.  When stress does build up, playing will help release it.

Now, don’t try to read too much into this.  I know that it all really is just a waste of time, there are lots of better things I could be doing, and there could be a million reasons why it works.  Maybe it is just because I enjoy games, and any diversion is a stress release.  Maybe a lot of things.  I know there are a lot of studies, and a lot more talk, that try to correlate violent media to violence in people.  And I’m not necessarily trying to prove or disprove anything.  I am simply stating my experience. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 27th, 2007 at 6:25 am and is filed under Technical Marks, Exclamation Mark. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.