This Video Game Was Built to Help Teens Manage Anxiety, and Now It’s Being Put to the Test
FIU researchers are investigating a new video game intervention that could offer teens an engaging way to manage anxiety and develop healthier coping strategies.
Anxiety disorders are the most common mental health condition among adolescents, according to the World Health Organization, which estimates that 4.1% of 10- to 14-year-olds and 5.3% of 15- to 19-year-olds experience one. Traditional therapy helps many teens, but not all. That gap is why researchers are now testing whether a video game can teach anxious teens to steady their attention and quiet their worries.
The game is called Eco-Rescue, and FIU’s Center for Children and Families is the first site in the United States running a clinical trial to see if it works.
How the Eco-Rescue video game works
Players take on the role of pilots working to restore damaged environments. The gameplay asks them to track moving objects, adapt to unexpected changes and juggle several tasks at once. Difficulty ramps up as players advance, giving them repeated practice at attention control and emotional regulation inside a setting that feels more like entertainment than therapy.
Unlike therapeutic games built for challenges such as ADHD, Eco-Rescue was designed to target the specific cognitive processes tied to anxiety rather than deliver general brain-training exercises. The game was developed alongside researchers at the University of Geneva, who bring cognitive training and game design expertise to the collaboration.
“The University of Geneva team brings expertise in cognitive training and game design, while FIU contributes its experience running clinical trials and studying anxiety in young people,” said Jeremy Pettit, psychology professor and executive director of FIU’s Center for Children and Families. “Together, this partnership combines the science behind the game with the clinical rigor to test how well it works.”
Why attention control matters for anxious teens
Therapists often teach young people to reconnect with the present by focusing on their surroundings instead of getting stuck in anxious thoughts. When teenagers struggle to redirect that focus, worry tends to feel more persistent and harder to shake.
Pettit’s earlier research suggests that strengthening attention control can ease anxiety symptoms, including for some teens who have not responded to traditional treatment. Eco-Rescue is built around that same principle, turning practice into gameplay.
“Adolescents are already spending a lot of time engaging with digital media,” Pettit said. “This project allows us to meet them where they are while delivering an intervention grounded in science.”
Inside the FIU clinical trial for the Eco-Rescue game
FIU is recruiting 50 adolescents between the ages of 11 and 15, part of a broader study expected to enroll about 150 participants across all research sites. The age range is deliberate. Anxiety disorders often emerge in early adolescence, a period of significant brain development when targeted interventions may have the most effect.
Participants will be split into three groups. One will play Eco-Rescue at home. Another will play a different video game that lacks attention-training features. A third group will not use any game during the six-week study.
Teens assigned to Eco-Rescue will play about 30 minutes a day, four days a week, adding up to roughly 12 hours over the course of the trial. Researchers will then measure changes in attention control, emotional regulation and anxiety symptoms across the groups.
What this study could mean for families
The World Health Organization notes that anxiety and depressive disorders can profoundly affect school attendance and schoolwork, and that social withdrawal can deepen isolation and loneliness. Access to care remains uneven, and many families face barriers to reaching traditional treatment.
If Eco-Rescue shows results, it could add a low-friction option to the toolbox, one that meets teens on devices they already use.
“This study is testing a new generation of attention-based treatment,” Pettit said. “If it proves effective, it could offer adolescents another option for managing anxiety in their daily lives.”
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