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A Japanese study looked at people who had received video game consoles as part of a lottery run by stores due to supply chain issues. The study suggests that both winning the lottery and playing the consoles relieved psychological distress and improved life satisfaction. However, the research also notes that the data was collected during the COVID-19 pandemic, which may not be reflective of times now, and may not account for other variables.
The Science Media Centre asked Ireland based experts to comment:
Josh McGiff, Lecturer in Immersive Software Engineering, University of Limerick said:
“This paper enlists a natural experiment to investigate the causal effect of video games on mental well-being. However, there are a number of limitations with their approach that require further research.
Although each respondent is associated with a gaming preference, the study itself does not address the genres of games that survey respondents play. Different genres of games such as competitive esports (e.g., League of Legends, Valorant), sandboxes (e.g., Minecraft) and puzzle games (e.g., Candy Crush) could have conflating impacts on mental health. Therefore, it could be beneficial to investigate the impact of game genre on changes in psychological well-being.
In the same light, whether the games being played by respondents are social, multiplayer games as opposed to single player could be a significant confounder in their findings. The survey does not account for this. Playing a co-op game (e.g., Fortnite) introduces an element of teamwork and collaboration as opposed to a solo experience (e.g., Dark Souls). Given that this survey was conducted during the pandemic, this social element of games could have been more significant due to prolonged social distancing at the time. Hence, a social element, or lack thereof in games could be a confounding factor in the study, as it may contribute to the mental well-being outcomes associated with gaming.
The paper also investigates the impact of PS5 & Switch gaming on mental health, yet many other gaming platforms exist (e.g., Xbox, PC, mobile, VR). Interestingly, the paper finds that PS5 usage had a smaller effect on mental health and had a higher proportion of hardcore gamers than the Switch. Since many competitive games are only available for PC, it would be insightful to observe the relationship between PC gamer preferences and their mental health.
Finally, this study does not consider long-term gaming exposure. Survey respondents could have received their first gaming console from the lottery system. The paper does not address pre-existing gaming habits or long-term effects.
Ultimately, this is an interesting experiment. While this paper could suggest a causal relationship between gaming and mental health, there are a number of confounders and limitations that need to be addressed in further research to validate these findings.”
Declarations of Interest:
Josh McGiff: I am a researcher with a scholarship from Science Foundation Ireland’s Centre for Research Training in Artificial Intelligence. I am a lecturer with Immersive Software Engineering at the University of Limerick, and I have taught sessions on game development. I develop and play games in my spare time.
‘Causal effect of video gaming on mental health well-being in Japan 2020-2022’ by Hiroyuki Egami et al. was published in Nature Human Behaviour at 16:00 Ireland time on Monday 19th August.