Playing to beat the blues: Linguistic agency and message causality effects on use of mental health games application

This study examined the effects of exposure to specific message features on the usage of mental health video games applications. Based on linguistic agency and disease causality, participants with mild depression read messages assigning agency to depression or to humans and depicting depression as external or internal before accessing a video game designed for handling depression symptoms. Assigning internal causality language led to greater game usability and higher intentions of using the games. Game performance and time spent playing the games, was higher for external causality language. Overall, findings from this study demonstrate the effectiveness of specific message prompt features to promote video game experience for mental health apps.