Short answer: it makes the urge weaker for a few minutes. It won’t erase it. Urges often show up as pictures in your head, and a game that keeps your eyes and hands busy competes with those pictures. In a 2015 study, people who played Tetris for three minutes when a craving hit rated it about 14 points weaker on a 0–100 scale, and that included cravings for sex. If you need a hard stop instead, a blocker with a passcode someone else holds does more.
What did the study actually test?
- Who: 31 undergraduates, over one week.
- How: they got a text seven times a day and rated any craving from 0 to 100. Half of them then played Tetris for three minutes and rated the craving again.
- What they found: craving strength dropped by 13.9 points on average, from about 70 to about 56. That held for drugs (alcohol, nicotine, caffeine), for food and drink, and for activities, which included sex, exercise and gaming.
- What it didn’t test: porn specifically, or Forth. It’s one small study about Tetris.
Source: Skorka-Brown, Andrade, Whalley and May, “Playing Tetris decreases drug and other cravings in real world settings,” Addictive Behaviors, 2015.
Why would a game work on an urge?
A craving often starts as a passing thought. Then you build it up with detailed pictures of what you want. Researchers call this the elaborated intrusion theory of desire (Kavanagh, Andrade and May, Psychological Review, 2005). Those pictures use the same mental room you use to see and move shapes. A game that fills that room leaves less space for them.
Which games work best?
Pick games where you watch and move shapes: falling blocks, fitting pieces, matching patterns, sliding a picture back together. Word games and math puzzles don’t compete with mental pictures in the same way. In a 2010 study of people trying not to smoke, shaping modeling clay cut cigarette cravings more than counting backward from 100 did (May, Andrade, Panabokke and Kavanagh, Behaviour Research and Therapy, 2010).
How to use a game when an urge hits
- Start right away, before the pictures build up.
- Play for about three minutes.
- Then pick your next move: get up, change rooms, or put the phone down.
- If nights are the hard part, set up blocking before night comes.
Do I need an app for this?
No. Any Tetris-style game covers the three minutes. Forth puts the game, a plan built from a quick assessment, and optional Screen Time blocking in one place, and keeps your progress on your phone. If you don’t want to pay for anything, Apple’s built-in Screen Time with a passcode someone else holds is a free blocker.
More ideas for the moment an urge hits: what to do when a porn urge hits.