Symposium 6th World Congress on Positive Psychology 2019

Positive Video Gaming: Can Gaming Facilitate Positive Engagement with the Arts and Humanities? (#337)

Daniel J Loton 1
  1. Centre for Positive Psychology, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

Video gaming, like predecessors print, radio and television, has been subject to extensive debate about potential negative effects. While debates over violence and addiction continue, a growing body of research is considering when and how video gaming may be positive. When balanced, video gaming for leisure can be recuperative, and gaming is associated with coping style (Loton et al., 2016). With well-designed motivational systems, feedback loops and high fidelity simulation capability, video gaming and ‘gamification’ are expanding into education, health care and many domains. While not yet ‘mainstream’, there are several examples of video games that aim to foster knowledge, skills, and qualities aligned to complex models of wellbeing such as citizenship, empathy, and intercultural awareness. If engagement with the arts and humanities, including film and literature, are able to confer wellbeing benefits, video gaming may also be a feasible vehicle.  With an estimated 1.2 billion players globally, can video gaming be a medium through which to meaningfully experience the arts and humanities? What possible conditions may promote adaptive rather than deleterious outcomes, and through what mechanisms? This proposition will be considered with reference to research on media effects, human-computer interaction and potential links between wellbeing, the arts and humanities.