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Tetris: The Healing Game (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

• 0:03
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Alice Irrazari.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: And I'm Colin Lowva. Spotlight uses a special English method
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: matter where in the world they live.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: The car crash changed the girl's life. Her body did
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: not have many injuries, but the memories from the accident
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: still terrify her. They come at times she does not expect.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: She tries to think about something else when they happen,
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: but these memories stop her other thoughts. It is as
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: if she is living through the accident all over again.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: The girl is developing post trauma to extress disorder, or PTSD.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: This is a condition where memories of life threatening events
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  Speaker 2: take over long after they happened. These memories, called flashbacks,
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: seem very real. People with PTSD experience many flashbacks in
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: their lifetime. They relive their accidents over and over again.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Whenever she has these memories, they have her play a
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: video game called Tetris. Tetris seems to be the one
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  Speaker 1: thing that she is now thinking about. The game helps
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  Speaker 1: her think about something other than her flashbacks. It makes
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: them seem less frightening. But experts believe that Tetris may
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: have an even greater effect. It may stop her from
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  Speaker 1: getting post traumatic stress disorder at all. Today, a spotlight
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: is on Tetris, the healing game.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Tetris is a simple game created in nineteen eighty five
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  Speaker 2: by Alix Pagetknoth. The game was designed so that almost
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  Speaker 2: anyone could play. A player turns different shaped blocks. As
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: the blocks fall down the screen, the goal is to
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: fit these blocks together in perfectly level lines. When a
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: player forms these level lines, the blocks flash and disappear.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: This is called clearing a line. Clearing lines gains a
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: player points. It also provides more room on screen to
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: line up blocks. The game ends when the blocks reach
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: the top of the screen. The blocks fall faster as
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: the game goes on, making it more difficult.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: These simple rules made Tetris a success. Today, the series
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: has sold over five hundred and twenty million copies of
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: the game. It is the second highest selling video game
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: in history. Pajetnov spoke about the success of Tetris with
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: the gaming website Polygon.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: In lots of games you go in and destroy things.
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  Speaker 3: In Tetris, you have the feeling that you are building
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: something all the time. It is useful and positive. It
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: makes you feel smart.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: But Tetris is more than just fun and good feelings.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Emily Holmes is a teacher at the Karolinska Institute, a
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: university in Sweden. She believed that Tetris's simple rules could
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: be useful for treating PTSD. In twenty seventeen, she carried
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: out a test on people who had been in car accidents.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: She asked them to reach remember the accident, then she
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  Speaker 1: asked them to play Tetris for fifteen minutes. The people
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: who played Tetris were less likely to get PTSD, their
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: flashbacks were less intense.
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: Experts are not yet sure why Tetris has this effect,
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  Speaker 2: but much of it may have to do with how
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  Speaker 2: image based Tetris is. Tetris occupies most of the image
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: centers of a person's mind when playing the game. Flashbacks
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  Speaker 2: are also very image based. Picturing a painful memory involves
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: the same area of the brain. A person cannot concentrate
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: on both the game and the memories at the same time.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Playing Tetris stops or blocks the memories from happening.
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  Speaker 1: This block is important, and for people who have gone
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: through intense mental injury. The more people reexperience the events
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: that hurt them. The more those memories stay with them,
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  Speaker 1: their flashbacks become more difficult to get rid of. They
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: may even fear the flashbacks themselves. This leaves sufferers in
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: continuous states of worry. They might push away help for
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: fear it will hurt them. Doctor Lali Eyadurai is a
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  Speaker 1: teacher at the University of Oxford. She wrote in the
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  Speaker 1: journal Molecular Psychiatry.
• 5:37
  Speaker 4: This first week after injury can be important for our patients.
• 5:42
  Speaker 4: They have to go home, recover and look after themselves.
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  Speaker 4: These can be hard to do if you are getting
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: memories of the injury, often several times a day.
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  Speaker 2: Tetris, the studies suggests, is a good way to prevent
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: those memories from forming at all, or it can at
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  Speaker 2: least limit the difficulty that these memories cause.
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  Speaker 1: The game may also help with other issues. In twenty fifteen,
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  Speaker 1: scientists from the University of Queensland carried a study on
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  Speaker 1: some of its students. The study worked to see if
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: Tetris could affect desires for drugs or alcohol. Students were
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  Speaker 1: asked to play Tetris for three minutes whenever they experienced
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: these desires. They reported their levels of desire before and
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  Speaker 1: after playing.
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  Speaker 2: The results were similar to the study on post traumatic
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  Speaker 2: stress disorder. Playing Tetris lessened the desire for things like drugs, alcohol, sex,
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  Speaker 2: and food. The effect was the same for each desire.
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  Speaker 2: Tetris reduced desire no matter how how many times a
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  Speaker 2: student played. Professor Jackie Onrawday is a teacher at Plymouth
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  Speaker 2: University in the United Kingdom who helps run the study.
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  Speaker 2: She spoke about it on her university's website.
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  Speaker 5: We think the Tetris effect happens because desire involves imagining.
• 7:22
  Speaker 5: You picture, eating a particular substance, or being satisfied by
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  Speaker 5: a particular action. Tetris is graphically interesting. It takes over
• 7:34
  Speaker 5: the mental processes that support imagery. It is hard to
• 7:39
  Speaker 5: imagine something else vividly and play Tetris at the same time.
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: Playing Tetris may even help cure lazy eye. This condition
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: takes place when a person's brain cannot take in information
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  Speaker 1: from one eye. Eventually, the brain stops trusting that eye.
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: It closes the eye off, causing sight loss. That eye
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: is said to be lazy. It does not work as
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  Speaker 1: much as the other eye.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Sometimes an operation is the only way to correct lazy eye,
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  Speaker 2: but often the eye can be trained. The more patients
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  Speaker 2: use the weak eye, the more effective it becomes. A
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: study released in twenty nineteen suggested that playing Tetris is
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  Speaker 2: an effective eye training method. The strong images of the
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  Speaker 2: game forced the eyes to work together. Eyesight improved in
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: patients for thirty minutes after playing the game. Playing the
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: game for fifteen minutes a day saw permanent improvement after
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  Speaker 2: just two weeks.
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  Speaker 1: Tetris may not be the only game to have these advantages.
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Other games like it may have similar effects. Research into
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: the therapeutic possibilities for video games is just beginning, but
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: these studies suggest that Tetris is more than just a
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  Speaker 1: game one day Tetus may be a part in certain
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: therapies for helping and healing many people.
• 9:21
  Speaker 2: Have you ever played Tetris? What do you think about it?
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: You can leave a comment on our website or emailers
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: at radio at Radio English dot net. You can also
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: comment on Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight Radio.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: The writer of this program was Dan Christman. The producer
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: was Michyo Osaki. The voices you heard were from the
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: United States and the United Kingdom. All quotes were adapted
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: for this program and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: to this pro program again and read it on the
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: internet at www dot Radio English dot net. This program
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: is called Tetris the Healing Game.
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: You can also get our programs delivered directly to your
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app.
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: We hope you can join us again for the next
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: Spotlight program. Goodbye,