Online games may be an effective intervention to help adolescents reduce substance abuse

For adolescents battling substance abuse, conventional in-person interventions similar to counseling aren’t at all times efficient, and rural areas usually lack entry to those companies.

A researcher on the College of Missouri is considering exterior the field, aiming to assist game designers develop enjoyable, digital games that make ditching unhealthy habits simpler by assembly adolescents the place they already are: on-line.

Mansoo Yu, a professor within the Faculty of Well being Sciences, checked out 26 research involving digital interventions, together with online games, digital actuality video games, cellular app video games and video video games, to establish the important thing components that make these interventions efficient in serving to adolescents scale back ingesting, smoking and illicit drug use. He discovered the best video games had been customized to the person taking part in the sport, had a social part for customers to compete in opposition to their family and friends, and included content material that inspired behavior change.

The findings, appearing in Kids, can present a blueprint for designing digital game-based interventions in methods which might be most probably to assist adolescents scale back substance abuse and encourage optimistic growth.

“On the subject of designing the best interventions, you at all times need to meet individuals the place they’re, and the youthful technology usually prefers to satisfy up nearly as a substitute of in individual,” Yu mentioned. “On-line interventions additionally improve accessibility in rural areas the place in-person clinics and counseling companies aren’t at all times accessible.”

Yu added that unhealthy behaviors similar to smoking usually function a approach of dealing with underlying mental health issues, together with anxiousness and despair. Due to this fact, a key ingredient of a profitable digital game-based intervention is emphasizing optimistic actions that may function a substitute for unhealthy behaviors.

“Whether or not it is sports activities, mentorship packages, music, portray, outdoor activities or recreation facilities, offering sources for more healthy options will be very useful,” Yu mentioned. “There may also be a social part, similar to some extent system for rewarding good habits, to create pleasant competitors and permit customers to play with their buddies, mother and father and lecturers. Peer modeling will be very impactful for adolescents.”

Video games that start by asking for the person’s particular pursuits may assist create extra customized interventions, finally growing person engagement.

“Hopefully this analysis helps sport designers going ahead create essentially the most personalized, efficient interventions doable,” Yu mentioned. “Mizzou’s sturdy basis in each public well being and social work, together with its mission as a land-grant college, has given me the chance to discover these intersections and advance this work.”

Yu collaborated on the examine with colleagues from Ewha Womans College in South Korea.