During the coronavirus pandemic, video, computer games and especially casino online are in demand like never before. But we also know that the corona pandemic has changed many things.
Researchers have investigated whether people feel worse if they spend a lot of time playing computer games. One thing is certain: you shouldn’t rely on the information provided by gamers. It is better to try it out on your own.
More than 3.7 billion people worldwide play video games on a PC, console or smartphone. And since people have been spending more time at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, the number of gamers and the amount of time they spend in front of a screen has increased significantly. But is it good for your own well-being to spend many hours in the virtual gaming world in your free time?
Scientists have disagreed on this for decades. A meta-study recently came to the conclusion that the state of research is somewhere between “media use has destroyed a generation” and those who dismiss such statements as “technology panic”.
A research group from the Oxford Internet Institute now wants to contribute to the question of whether people are worse off if they spend many hours a day playing computer games with a new study. To this end, three scientists from the Institute, which is part of Oxford University, have examined the well-being of gamers in relation to the time they spend playing.
The researchers surveyed the mood of 3227 players of two popular games, “Plants versus Zombies: Battle for Neighborville” and “Animal Crossing: New Horizons”, using various positive and negative emotions. The participants were able to indicate on a scale how often they had experienced these within the study period of two weeks. The answers were then compared with the playing time during the same period.
The Data
To collect the data, the researchers worked together with the game manufacturers Electronic Arts and Nintendo. “What makes the study unique is that we don’t rely on what people say,” explains study author Niklas Johannes. The companies were able to record the playing time directly via telemetry. The problem with many previous studies, on the other hand, is that they relied exclusively on the study participants’ self-assessment of playing time. This often deviates considerably from the actual times. The scientists from Oxford see this methodology as one of the reasons why hardly any valid studies on video games have been published in almost 30 years. For this reason alone, their work represents progress, says study author Johannes.
The Oxford study also compared subjective screen time with measured screen time and found an average deviation of half an hour and an hour and a half respectively for the two games, measured over a total period of two weeks.
But what can we actually deduce from the results? The study only shows a correlation – not a causal relationship. To put it bluntly: you can’t say whether playing games makes people happier or whether happier people are more likely to play. It is therefore not possible to deduce that video games make people happy. The changes in well-being observed are also far too small for that – in fact, they are far below what can be subjectively perceived.
Based on this data, you would have to play between three and a half and six hours a day to notice a significant improvement. Would you really still feel that good? “We only investigated a linear relationship,” Johannes clarifies. The study does not reveal whether and when the yield stagnates, or the reasons for this.
