I think if there's been one gift to humanity from the world of video games and video game

research, it has been that we better understand now a lot of ways that non-pharmaceuticalically

we can alter our brain state and we can alter our mood.

That is a gift.

A gift and a responsibility.

Note to self, a little brain alteration, no drugs needed, can be a beautiful thing.

But when you use video games to do the altering, well, there need to be parameters.

I'm a new summer ody, your guide to this accelerating world, and that is game designer and futurist

Jane McGonagall.

Jane researches how games, yes, even stupid little games like Candy Crush can actually

be good for us.

If they're used the right way.

And I know that you guys need to hear how, because as I've been traveling the country

on tour for my book, Bored and Brilliant, which is, of course, about taking charge of

our technology, inevitably someone in the audience asks about how they can get themselves,

or usually their kid, to lay off the games.

Most of us think of video games as time sucks or our dirty little secrets.

I mean, admit it.

You judge the person playing Candy Crush next to you on the bus the whole ride home.

Were you judge yourself for playing Candy Crush the whole ride home?

I did, until I talk to Jane.

Her official title is Director of Game Research and Development at the Institute for the Future

...