Small link between video gaming and wellbeing

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2021-02-17 11:01

International

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The link between time spent playing video games and mental wellbeing is much debated. Collaborating with two gaming companies, UK researchers have analysed behavioural data and self-reported answers provided by people playing two popular games. They found a small positive link between play time and wellbeing for both games, although player motivation had a stronger link than the time they spent playing. Importantly, the authors say their findings don't establish a causal connection between gaming and wellbeing.

Media release

From: The Royal Society

More people than ever play video games, but many are concerned that spending a lot of time playing is harmful. However, measuring play time is difficult: People’s estimates of how much they play are unreliable. We collaborated with video game companies to obtain the actual, accurate play time of players, and queried their well-being and motivations for playing. The results were surprising: Play time was positively related to well-being, in contrast to the many fears about negative effects of video games. Equally important, the motivations and experiences of players played a larger role for well-being than mere play time.

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Journal/
conference: Royal Society Open Science

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: Oxford University, UK

Funder: The research was supported by grants from the Huo Family Foundation and the Economic and Social Research Council (ES/T008709/1) and by in-kind technical contributions by Electronic Arts and Nintendo of America. The authors declare no competing interests. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The industry partners reviewed study design and assisted with data collection, but had no role in data analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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