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.

This note to self, the tech show about being human, I'm Anouche Summerodi and on this

episode, are there good and bad games?

Is it ever okay to play that game that you feel like is a total time suck?

What kind of limits should we put on ourselves?

What about our kids?

Are they learning something from all those hours with that PlayStation?

And if you're not much of a gamer, why would you ever want to get into playing?

As many of you who listen to this show know, I am not much of a gamer.

But after talking to this woman, I don't know, I might start picking up the console.

Because this woman says that video games are the new self-help.

I am Jane McGonagall, I'm the director of Game Research and Development at the Institute

for the Future in Palo Alto, California.

Okay, the Institute for the Future, yes, this is a real place and what they try to do is

blow people's minds with ideas about how the world could be different with new technology,

new models of thinking.

And Jane joined the group after she finished her PhD in performance studies at Berkeley.

She became an expert in how games, specifically video games, can make us more imaginative, smarter,

both as individuals and collectively as communities, as societies.

...