Time Spent Playing Video Games is Unlikely to Impact Well-being

Overview

Journal R Soc Open Sci

Specialty Science

Date 2022 Aug 1

PMID 35911206

Authors

Matti Vuorre

Niklas Johannes

Kristoffer Magnusson

Andrew K Przybylski

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

Video games are a massively popular form of entertainment, socializing, cooperation and competition. Games' ubiquity fuels fears that they cause poor mental health, and major health bodies and national governments have made far-reaching policy decisions to address games' potential risks, despite lacking adequate supporting data. The concern-evidence mismatch underscores that we know too little about games' impacts on well-being. We addressed this disconnect by linking six weeks of 38 935 players' objective game-behaviour data, provided by seven global game publishers, with three waves of their self-reported well-being that we collected. We found little to no evidence for a causal connection between game play and well-being. However, results suggested that motivations play a role in players' well-being. For good or ill, the average effects of time spent playing video games on players' well-being are probably very small, and further industry data are required to determine potential risks and supportive factors to health.

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