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Video games are one of those forms of media that none of us seem to be able to agree on. Some people love them, some people just can’t get down with them, and some people believe that they actually can have a fairly negative impact on our emotional health and wellbeing. Studies on the subject have revealed a broad spectrum of possible answers to the age-old conundrum ‘are video games bad for you?’. These can range from the idea that gaming can help build skills and confidence in learners with dyslexia and literacy differences, to the idea that some games could prompt violent copycat reactions in the children who spend their leisure time playing games where the main objectives are combat-based. They’re a loaded topic that divides many parent and educator communities, but research does appear to be mining into the idea more these days and trying to get to the bottom of it by really interrogating the relationship between video gaming and mental health.
Many parents worry that their children spending numerous hours in virtual worlds could have a negative impact on their mental wellbeing – after all, they’re likely to be sitting alone in their room and not engaging with their peers, which many of us still see as a vital form of socialisation. What some don’t realise, however, is that a lot of socialisation takes place on these gaming platforms, through virtual text exchanges, in-game collaboration, and via audio communication systems. There’s actually a fair chance that somebody sat gaming in their room is chatting more to their friends than they would do if they were sat in the same room together, but many parents still worry about the long-term effects of gaming. Some are also concerned about the subject matter and its effects on developing minds, as many games often feature high-stakes narratives with no small amount of combat, which some parents may feel isn't suitable for children.
But a new, large-scale study from the Oxford Internet Institute at Oxford University, the Centre for Psychiatry Research at the Karolinska Instituet and Stockholm Health Care Services reveals that time spent video games is actually unlikely to impact mental health and wellbeing either way. The pre-print of the study appears in PsyArXiv, and the abstract reads:
“Video games are a massively popular form of entertainment, socialising, 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 38,030 players’ objective game-behaviour data, provided by six 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 gameplay 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 likely very small.”
It's an interesting development in the gaming and mental health research landscape in that it indicates that there isn’t really a shift into poorer mental wellbeing apparent in people who play more video games. According to the new data, when it comes to the effects that video games can have on an individual’s relationship with self and self-image, the connection just isn’t there.
The research echoes the findings of a study completed several months previously, in which researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Institute for Behavioural Genetics found that screen time actually doesn’t have that much of an impact on child mental health, and that the negative effects of it have been vastly overestimated by previous studies and journalism. They’re conclusions to dedicate some thought to: in an age where our socialisation is becoming increasingly digital on other platforms, do we need to interrogate our relationship with the idea of gaming and re-assess how much of our trepidation is coming from outdated views – or is it still something to pay attention to when it comes to making sure children are growing up fostering good mental health?
Opinions will likely remain divided. It’s an issue that many people all over the world feel passionately about, but the tide does appear to be turning on the idea that gaming and a poor relationship with self are inextricably linked. It’s an interesting time to keep an eye on the research landscape, and to really take a look at what the next generation of gaming and media means for the children and the young people who make up a huge part of its consumer base. It's more than a little comforting to think that after a year where many of us have had to find leisure activities that take place in the home, all those socially-distant hours sunk into video gaming may not have had that much of an adverse effect on how children and young people feel mentally, too.
