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The vast majority of post-80s and 90s may have played Tetris. In an era of lack of entertainment and games, this simple Mini Game captured the hearts of countless people. Of course, this is also the case. Tetris is an extremely successful game that was popular all over the world in the 1980-1990s. Today, it has sold 100 million copies on various game platforms, making it the second best-selling video game in history.

▲ Tetris is the childhood memory of many people. Photo Source: public domain

The operation of the game is very simple, only need to press down, left, right, rotate four keys to control the seven kinds of squares falling on the screen, when these squares fall to fill an entire row, this line will be eliminated, the more rows eliminated, the higher the score.

The task of ▲ Tetris is to eliminate the image source: wikipediapublic domain

Because there were few kinds of video games at that time, and Tetris was easy to play and quick to use, especially at that time, it had no checkpoints and could be eliminated as long as it didn't die, so it soon attracted a large number of players to indulge in it. Some players play all day, even sleepless. When they are done, when they look at the real world, they will find that everything looks like Tetris-whether it is milk boxes on supermarket shelves or distant buildings. When I go to bed at night, I can see all kinds of squares falling even when I close my eyes. Because this phenomenon was originally described by Tetris players, it is called Tetris effect.

The Tetris architecture imagined by ▲ artists may be the world in the eyes of people who have been addicted to games for too long.

Source: screenshot of artist @ mariyanatanasov's work on instagram

However, this phenomenon does not only appear in the "Tetris". After playing go and Rubik's cube for a long time, some people will find that their vision will turn into a black-and-white network grid, or a rotating Rubik's cube. And with the sound and optoelectronic effect of the game getting better and better, more and more people have this phenomenon after playing other games, especially after the emergence of modern VR / AR games, many people who have been addicted for a long time often find it difficult to distinguish between virtual and reality when they are separated from the game.

The obsession with Tetris and the Tetris effect seem to be harmful to players, but recent studies have shown that proper play with Tetris is not only harmless, but also beneficial.

In a study in the 1990s, scientists found that people who played Tetris for the first time significantly increased their brain glucose metabolic rate (GMR)-meaning that the brain consumed more energy while playing games. After playing for 4 or 8 weeks, their GMR fell back to their original level, while their game scores were seven times higher than before. This result shows that the brain efficiency of players has been greatly increased after long-term game training. A 2009 experiment proved that playing Tetris increases the thickness of the cerebral cortex, which is demonstrated in terms of brain structure.

Volunteers' cerebral cortex thickening (red part) after "Tetris" training in ▲. Source: reference [3]

Not only that, but scientists have shown that playing Tetris is also helpful in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). This disease occurs when people have experienced emotional, war, traffic accidents, natural disasters and other accidents. Symptoms include the involuntary repetition of related memories in dreams or waking states (flashbacks), nightmares, personality changes, irritability, escape, amnesia and other symptoms. In 2009, scientists showed volunteers a short video of violence and death, half of which were assigned to play Tetris for 10 minutes, while the other half served as a control group, doing nothing. A survey a week later found that people who played Tetris had fewer flashes and less traumatic impact.

The experimental flow of ▲ "Tetris" in the treatment of PTSD. Source: reference [4]

In another experiment, conducted in 2014, scientists asked 31 undergraduates to report their cravings for food, drink, tobacco, alcohol and coffee seven times a day for a week. One group of experimenters were asked to play Tetris for three minutes before submitting a report. It was found that during the week, as long as they played games, their cravings for these substances decreased by an average of about 13.9%. The conclusions of these experiments have led some foreign institutions that treat addicts such as tobacco, alcohol and drugs to play "Tetris" as an auxiliary means in their detoxification treatment and promote it to their patients.

A screenshot from the website of a ▲ UK treatment facility shows TETRIS as "Tetris".

So why can Tetris be addictive, and why can it have so many "healing" effects?

Some scientists believe that on the one hand, the reason why it is addictive is that people tend to "organize". When we see disorganized objects, we tend to straighten them out. However, Tetris will continue to create irregularity, and when we finally eliminate one line, the newly dropped square makes another line irregular, thus constantly "seducing" us to continue. At the same time, successfully eliminating a line can give us a kind of successful feedback, which gives us a constant sense of satisfaction. the cycle of seduction and satisfaction keeps us going, even sleepless. The pleasure of "elimination" is so tempting that similar "Xiaolue" has been popular all over the country.

When ▲ plays Tetris, disorganized squares naturally make people feel the urge to straighten it out. Photo Source: https://chvin.github.io/ react-tetris/

In addition, the Tetris effect may also be related to a psychological phenomenon called the Zeigarnik effect. This psychological phenomenon is named after Soviet psychologist Bluma Zeigarnik, who found that waiters clearly remember every table in the restaurant, but once the food and drink are served, they forget all about it and never remember it again. Caijarnik believes that this is because people are more likely to remember unfinished work, or interrupted work, rather than finished work. This psychological phenomenon is used in many current scenarios, such as ads for variety shows, such as question-and-answer shows, which are often interrupted when the question is given but no answer is given; serial novels are often broken in the middle of the story (this kind of author is often scolded as a "broken dog"); mobile software always contains messages such as "your personal data has been filled in 65%" and so on.

The numbers pointed to by the ▲ arrow are tempting us: things are not done! In a similar situation, we can see it as long as we turn on our mobile phone and computer, including, but not limited to, some PC manager's floating balls.

Photo source: screenshot of the author's mobile phone

There is no barrier setting in Tetris, and as long as you don't die, you will keep falling square. this mechanism undoubtedly coincides with the "Zeigarnik effect" and will make people remember each other deeply. It may also be because it is a profound visual memory, when playing Tetris, people's brain limited visual memory resources are squeezed, resulting in PTSD-related memory is relatively less profound, so it is effective in the treatment of this disease.

In terms of reducing desire and helping the treatment of addiction, some scientists have put forward the desire invasion Theory (Elaborated Intrusion Theory), which holds that people's desire for food and addictive substances comes from visual triggers, and Tetris helps to interfere with these visual triggers, thus significantly reducing desire.

Of course, so far, people's research on the psychological effects attached to Tetris is still very shallow, only some of the effects have been observed, and the causes of these effects are only speculation. in the stage of knowing but not knowing why, scientists need to do more research.

Finally, small play is enjoyable, but big play is harmful. I hope everyone will not indulge in the game.

Reference:

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_effect

[2] https://www.wired.com/1994/05/tetris-2/

[3] Haier R J, Karama S, Leyba L, et al. MRI assessment of cortical thickness and functional activity changes in adolescent girls following three months of practice ona visual-spatial task [J]. BMC research notes, 2009, 2 (1): 1-7.

[4] Holmes E A, James E L, Coode-Bate T, et al. Can playing the computer game "Tetris" reduce the build-up of flashbacks for trauma? A proposal from cognitive science [J]. PloS one, 2009, 4 (1): e4153.

[5] https://www.spring.org.uk/2021/06/zeigarnik-effect.php

[6] https://www.zmescience.com/research/studies/addiction-tetris-8734823/

This article is from the official Wechat account: bring Science Home (ID:steamforkids), written by Shen Mengxi.

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