Wellness Scalar Group Project

Empathy

Digital literature works like the game found on itch called "Mental Health" can help the readers feel empathy. Feeling empathy from digital literature relates to wellness because a sense of empathy can increase your own feeling of happiness and self worth. In the game mental health you have to avoid things like stress, doubt, sadness, etc... (see figure below) in order to stay on top of your mental illness and not let it consume you.

In this picture you are playing as the character trying to dodge the wave of stress coming over you. This screenshot can make the player feel empathy because everyone has experienced stress so the player can understand what the character is going through as this wave of stress falls on them. In the article "Empathy and Its Alternatives: Deconstructing the Rhetoric of “Empathy” in Video Games" Ruberg says, "Often, proponents of empathy as principle of game design frame its value through the feelings that it inspires in players, not only while they are playing a game but also after" (3). The quote is saying that empathy can not only be felt during the gameplay but it can also have a lasting effect on the player after the game is done being played. This feeling of empathy from the game can improve a players self happiness, and own feeling of self worth through feeling for others. Digital literature like the game "Mental Health" can promote a players psychological wellbeing.
 

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