‘Binge gaming’ linked to poorer mental health in kids

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2025-08-14 04:00

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Playing video games for more than five hours straight is linked to greater depression, anxiety, stress, and poor sleep among primary and secondary school kids, new survey research reveals. Researchers asked more than 2500 school kids in Hong Kong about their gaming habits, perceived social support, mental health, and sleep quality, finding that 30% engaged in binge gaming in the last month. While binge-gaming rates were higher for boys than girls, both male and female binge gamers experienced greater loneliness and lower social support than non-binge gamers. Encouraging regular breaks and limited extended gaming sessions may help limit negative consequences, the team writes.

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Journal/
conference: PLOS One

Research:Paper

Organisation/s: HKCT Institute of Higher Education, China; Chinese University of Hong Kong, China

Funder: This work was supported by the Health and Medical Research Fund (HMRF) [#16171001] and [#17180791] and General Research Fund (GRF) [#14607319] and [#14609820]. HMRF and GRF had no role in the study design, collection, analysis or interpretation of the data, writing the manuscript, or the decision to submit the paper for publication.

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