A very cool side-use of Tetris has come about. Not only does it ensure people do not get their work done in offices worldwide, but it also has now been proven to prevent the flashbacks that occur with post traumatic stress disorder.

Doctors have found that the six hours coming directly after said events are the most important, as that is when the memories of the incident are being put into your memory. What the use of Tetris does, is interfere with those moments. As Ed Young explains:

Tetris, it seems, makes an ideal choice for that. To position its rotating blocks, players need good "visuospatial skills" - they need to see, focus on, and act upon the positions of different objects, all at high speed. These are the same sort of mental abilities that provide the foundations for flashback images.

A test was done with 40 subjects, showing them graphic things, even a drowning (*shivers*). Later, half the subjects played Tetris while the other half waited. The subjects were then given tests on how much they remembered from the video, where the Tetris players remembered less than half of what was shown.

PacoDG via bingegamer.net »