Exasperated parents may denounce video games as a devastating waste of time while trying to wean their children away from them. But could video games (whisper it) really be good for us?
A new Japanese study suggests they can significantly improve the mental well-being of children and adults.
“These games can serve as a distraction or emotional release, providing stress relief, improving mood, and a sense of accomplishment,” Dr. Hiroyuki Egami, assistant professor at Nihon University and lead author of the study, told Good Health. .
The behavioral scientist, who analyzed the effects of gaming on people aged 10 to 69, added that many parents “feel excessively concerned about their children’s gaming habits, fearing possible negative consequences”… but “our study now provides solid scientific evidence to alleviate some of those concerns.”
While many video game studies take place in a laboratory, Dr. Egami’s research had the advantage of being a real-world experiment. It took place between December 2020 and March 2022, when, due to the Covid-19 pandemic, consoles were in short supply in Japan and retailers decided to use lotteries to allocate available PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch.
Dr. Egami’s team followed the 8,192 people who participated in the vote and sent them five rounds of surveys to check their gaming habits and levels of psychological distress, a barometer of mental well-being.
They found that having a console, in addition to playing more video games, significantly improved mental well-being.
Dr Egami added: “Our natural experimental design allows us to say with confidence that games actually lead to greater well-being, rather than simply being associated with it.”
Scientists found that owning a console, in addition to playing more video games, significantly improved mental well-being.
This isn’t the first study to find a mental health benefit from video games.
For example, research conducted in 2020 at the University of Oxford, involving 3,270 adults, found that time spent playing was a small but significant positive factor in people’s well-being.
This follows previous research that found that while playing video games, people’s autonomic nervous system (which controls blood pressure, among other things) relaxed and their mood stabilized.
Pete Etchells, professor of psychology at Bath Spa University, says: “Gaming is one of the most fundamentally important things that people, young or old, can do, and video games are no different from other conventional forms of gaming in that sense.” ‘
He says many of the benefits can be explained through “self-determination theory,” which is the idea that humans have three basic psychological needs.
These are: the need for autonomy – that is, feeling that we have control over things; the need to relate, basically the need to connect with people (online games allow people to play and talk to others); and the need for competence, so we feel like we have a certain level of mastery over something, he explains.
“Video games are perfect for achieving all three,” he says.
In addition to the benefits for mental well-being, some video games have been found to have effects on our cognitive abilities.
Pete Etchells, professor of psychology at Bath Spa University, says: “Play is one of the most fundamentally important things that people, young or old, can do.”
Research from the University of Geneva has found that “action” games can specifically improve our spatial perception and cognition, attention and processing speed.
And although many assume that staring at a screen is harmful to our vision, studies have shown that gamers actually have better eyesight than non-gamers, specifically in being able to see small details in the context of clutter (for example, reading the fine print of a medication). bottle) and being able to distinguish between different levels of grey, which could help when driving in fog, for example.
And, more importantly, it’s not just that people who have better perceptual skills naturally choose to play these games.
“Properly controlled studies have repeatedly demonstrated a causal relationship between the use of (action) video games and increased abilities,” the Geneva researchers wrote in the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience in 2011.
Meanwhile, a 2023 study by York University examined gamers’ working memory capacity, which is the short-term retention of information in the mind while using that same information to complete a task.
It found that people aged 60 to 81 who predominantly played “puzzle” games had higher working memory than non-gamers, equivalent to that of younger adults. And among people ages 18 to 30, those who predominantly played “strategy” games (the kind that involve planning and problem-solving) had better working memory.
And when it comes to our attention span, “there is some research that shows that playing video games increases people’s ability to multitask,” says Gloria Mark, a computer science professor at the University of California and author of Attention Span and Multitasking. In The Digital. Age.
“But the downside is that someone needs to spend a lot of time playing video games to acquire that skill.” And it’s unclear how long that skill lasts or whether it’s transferable beyond video games.”
So is there any point at which the benefits for most people stop completely?
The Japanese study found that these decreased after three hours, but playing longer was not harmful, just less effective.
“Simply put, our study found that playing during the 181st minute was still beneficial, although slightly less than the 180th minute,” Dr. Egami said.
“We found no evidence that playing for more than three hours had a negative impact on mental well-being.”
Another study, conducted by the University of Oxford in 2022, which followed 12,000 high school students, suggested that even “heavy” gamers (those who spend more than 3.5 hours a day gaming) experienced no negative effects on their mental well-being. .
However, one in 12 participants did, but the researchers said these people “were also more likely to report previous experiences of abuse, anxiety or aggressive behaviours, suggesting that those with mental health problems may turn to gaming.” as a coping mechanism.”
A World Health Organization report from September this year suggested that 12 percent of adolescents were “at risk of problem gaming,” defined as reporting five or more symptoms of “Internet gaming disorder.”
Symptoms include giving up activities you previously enjoyed because of gaming, needing to spend more time gaming to satisfy the urge, and using gaming to relieve negative moods such as guilt or hopelessness. To meet the diagnosis, gambling must cause “significant impairment or distress” in various aspects of a person’s life.
Professor Mark Griffiths, director of the International Gambling Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University, said there are “dozens of factors that explain how and why people can become addicted to video games.”
“It all comes down to an interaction between the individual characteristics of the person, the situational characteristics in the person’s environment (e.g., advertising, peer pressure, accessibility), and the structural characteristics of the video game (i.e., how it is designed to play). that you can play over and over again).
Professor Etchells highlights games that use “loot boxes” as a particular area of concern, potentially as a gateway into gameplay. These involve the player paying, say, £1 to get an outfit for their character, but they can get a rare, desirable outfit or just a common, less desirable outfit.
“Therefore, there is a random chance of getting something that is desirable,” he said. “That looks and sounds like a game of chance.”
While much more research needs to be done, he said, preliminary studies have found a “small but consistent correlation between how much you spend on loot boxes and how many problem gambling behaviors you exhibit.”
While many critics argue that time limits should be imposed on games, Professor Etchells believes this is the “wrong way to think about how we engage with games.”
Use an example of how we consume food to explain this. With a high-energy, protein-rich bar, for example, eating one after a run is good, but if we make fun of them in bed at night, they may not be as good.
“It’s not true that after one, two, or many specific hours, the negatives suddenly start to outweigh the benefits,” he said. “Instead, it’s better to think about how video games fit into our broader ‘diet’ of activities.”
Dr. Egami adds: “As some experts in the field suggest, it’s helpful to ask yourself, ‘What would I do if I weren’t playing video games?'”
“If the alternative seems more important or makes you feel better than playing, that could be a warning sign and I would recommend reducing the time spent playing video games.”