Overview of the Project
It is easy for someone to get hooked onto a certain activity or hobby that they participate in for entertainment or for stress alleviation. Gaming can be a fun and addictive hobby, however, it can sometimes be hard for a gamer to know when to quit playing. The amount of time a gamer spends playing video games has steadily increased, from 5.1 h/week in 2011 to 6.5 h/week in 2019. This extended period of gaming can be detrimental to a gamer’s psychological well-being as well as causing issues with their health. In the DSM-5, the American Psychiatric Association defined Internet Gaming Disorder with diagnostic criteria closely related to Gambling Disorder.
As for physical health, extended gaming can cause major repercussions such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome (CTS). CTS is an instance of pain, numbness, and/or tingling that occurs as a result of this nerve being pinched, squeezed, or compressed. Most often, CTS will arise due to a series of repetitive movements performed over a long period of time, for example, a gamer typing on a keyboard or button-mashing a controller. As gaming continues to grow in popularity these physical and psychological issues that are associated with long gaming sessions will continue to arise in frequency.
In order to mitigate these issues, we plan on creating a device called the “Healthy-Gamer” that will be used to monitor a gamer’s psychological and physical health while they are gaming. If the Healthy-Gamer detects any health issues that are arising in the gamers, then the device will send an alert to the user letting them know to take a break from their gaming session. With the implementation of the Healthy-Gamer, a gamer can continue to enjoy their hobby while also retaining their psychological and physical health.
The Healthy-Gamer will constantly monitor and measure a user’s mental and physical health while they are gaming for an extended period of time. This device will record a user’s stress level, heart rate, body temperature, movement, and alert them if their levels are high. The data that is being recorded from a user will also be uploaded to a cloud-based dashboard for off-site monitoring. The data will also be displayed to the user through an LCD screen where they can cycle through their different measurements in real-time.