2018 Games for Change Festival

Digital technology holds tremendous promise for health promotion, but in the age of “techlash” how do we take the best that the digital ecosystem has to offer while avoiding its pitfalls? I discuss this issue using as an example the stress- and anxiety-reduction mobile app Personal Zen. Personal Zen is a brief, micro-intervention that gamifies a neurocognitive intervention for stress and anxiety called attention bias modification (ABMT). ABMT reduces habits of paying attention that drive the vicious cycle of stress and anxiety. I describe how Personal Zen and other neurogaming approaches are uniquely effective in the age of techlash.