Time spent playing video games is unlikely to impact well-being

Journal article

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.

Authors: Vuorre, M; Johannes, N; Magnusson, K; Przybylski, AK

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: The Royal Society
• Journal: Royal Society Open Science
• Volume: 9
• Issue: 7
• Article number: 220411
• Publication date: 2022-07-27
• Acceptance date: 2022-06-27
• DOI: 10.1098/rsos.220411
• EISSN: 2054-5703
• Language: English
• Keywords: play behaviour; well-being; human motivation; FFR; video games