6 lessons learnt from Video Gaming at the end of confinement.

Born at the turn of the sixties, the video game did not have to go through the Spanish Flu, nor even the Great War but it has today become one of the key activities during containment, able to cure the sores of the soul and the heart and bring some comfort and escape to families. As the COVID-19 epidemic plunges us all into amazement and confinement, the World Health Organization on April 3, 2020 recommends playing video games during the epidemic. She joined the Play Apart Together program launched to promote social distancing.

Gamestream has teamed up with Michaël Stora, a famous psychologist, psychoanalyst and psygamer, founder of the Observatory of the digital worlds in human sciences (OMNSH).

For many teens, the screens was a back-up board in the past weeks because they had a way of escaping the confinement and heaviness of interpersonal relationships that can exist in all families.

"Here, show me a little what you do on Tik Tok, and your YouTube videos" or "Come on, let's play Mario Kart", it's like those moments when you find yourself locked in a holiday home because it's raining, you play a board game.

Confinement learnt parents how to set limits and allow their teenagers to find pleasure without falling into a kind of fascism. It was complicated because it is paradoxically the rules - in terms of content and playing time - that pushed them to transgress.

For a long time, the parents' stress came from the content: “My son, yesterday, murdered 20 people. It was in Assassin's Creed. " This is a game in which many parents see only violence. What is true is graphic violence, as is often the case in video games. In this period of confinement, video games, which can appear violent to parents, are nevertheless a powerful cathartic space to avoid all overflows of mental excitement.

With a game like Fortnite, for example, it is the time spent there that becomes problematic for parents. My work has shown me that often the screen issues is only part of the problem; there are mostly more complex things to deal with under a screen addiction. But it is clear that this period amplified the fact that some played wildly.

The passing weeks, we were all passive, helpless and a little traumatized. It is normal that the choice of the game is made accordingly, but for those who mind, I would advise to offer children more narrative games, those where it is possible to do without the controller from one to the other, to play as a family. Like investigation or negotiation games, like Detroit, the latest creation from David Cage where there are all kinds of choices to make. If you have a father who is passionate about mythology, for example, Assassin’s Creed will bring him closer to his children, the last Odyssey part staging an adventure with Greek gods and a whole historical background.

According to Karen Seror, CMO for Gamestream : "Since the beginning of confinement, Video Games have experienced a real revival in households. While we are limited in our activities, the game player becomes an actor and an inter-actor, a real director and spectator of the game that he lets others see. Adorned with cognitive, therapeutic and educational virtues, it is a space for enhancement that rewards our progress and a space for recreation that allows socialization and inclusion."