Stay Strong Nation is a non-profit organisation dedicated to helping US war veterans cope with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury, and they believe that realistic combat games like Call of Duty might be a bigger danger to PTS sufferers than most people think, possibly acting as a dangerous and sometimes volatile trigger for PTSD episodes.
Are they saying the games are dangerous? Not so much for veterans that recognise they are suffering from PTSD, who know better than to expose themselves to such stimuli.
“The scariest part of PTS is when a veteran experiences symptoms such as flashbacks, or feelings of panic and depression, yet unknowingly brushes it under a blanket of machismo,” said Gresford Lewishall, vice president of the organisation. “Veterans either play or have exposure to the games and subsequently feel like they’re back in Afghanistan or Iraq in life or death situations. Their heart beat accelerates and they feel a sense of unease come over them.”
Stay Strong Nation’s goal is to make veterans aware of the potential danger of games like Call of Duty as potential PTSD triggers, while educating civilians on the potential problems so that they can avoid unknowingly exposing their soldier friends and family.
Aliasalpha
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 8:58 AMWould it not be reasonably obvious that playing a military fps might remind people of being in the military and shooting at people, in first person?
Mr Waffle
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 10:27 AMOn the other hand, a mate of mine is in the US Army, and they used to play Modern Warfare at his base in Baghdad…
Sergei
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 12:38 PMI can imagine Bad Company 2 bringing back PTSD. The sounds alone will.
Michael Barnes
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 4:10 PMThe gunshots in that game make CoD’s sound like “pew pew pew”.
Joe Fish
Thursday, February 10, 2011 at 10:01 PMI don’t see how COD is a realistic combat game, on the contrary, my mates in the army play it to calm down, because it’s arcadey.
Cornelius Wilson
Friday, February 11, 2011 at 3:26 AMGames are now more realistic than before so I could see this happening. I mean even when you play online and you’re communicating with other people you see how deep people are in the game. They take it personal and spend a lot of time on the game.
In other news has anyone heard anything else about Modern Warfare 3 http://mwarfare3.com? That’s the only website I could find some information on and they said they game will be released on November 11 and supposedly have the plot of the game.
Sam Timmins
Friday, February 11, 2011 at 4:41 AMSo sufferers of Pre-traumatic stress disorder should avoid HALO then?