Videogame Education as an Anxiety Treatment between Middle-Year Students Post-Covid 19

Abstract

The present article seeks to provoke a discussion into how video games can be used in anxiety treatments and social stimulation tools among middle-year students and children of that same age. To do so, we initially start this article by reflecting on how the covid-19 pandemic disparate all anxiety alerts in our society including mental health issues such as depression and special anxiety disorders. Then we compare how the numbers of anxiety among children and young adults were already alarming before the lockdowns imposition and the social distance measures, especially in urban centers. This rising anxiety condition can be felt especially in the years that followed the social isolation of children especially because their social connection and recognition were just starting to grow and to establish important connections between their peers in-person and in virtual environments, throwing light on how to screen media and children`s homes are related with the anxiety increase and how we can investigate that phenomenon without succumbing to excessive positivism to today`s technology or to a deconstructive pessimism that leads us to distrust those media that are already in contact with middle-year students and children`s in that same age. To do so, we will resort to philosophical tools such as Edusemiotics and Cultural Studies to understand how games such as Minecraft and Roblox can be used in school environments to help students and teachers manage anxiety levels and surpass socialization issues past covid-19 lockdowns. To finish our reflection we also bring some data related to how those same media and games helped middle-year students to surpass social isolation and family disconnection during the pandemic while their kept exercising school content in those games, sharing and debating with their peers on virtual platforms.