Playtime has no link to levels of well-being, study finds

Image source, Respawn Entertainment

A study of 39,000 video gamers found that "little to no evidence" the te mps spent gaming affects their well-being.

The average gamer would have to play 10 more hours than usual per day to notice a difference, did -it finds. And reasons for gambling were much more likely to have an impact.

Well-being was measured by asking questions about life satisfaction and levels of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and frustration.

The results contradict a 2020 study.

Conducted by the same department at the Oxford Internet Institute – but with a much smaller group of gamers – the 2020 study suggested those who played longer were happier.

"Common sense says that if you have more free time to play video games, you're probably a happier person," said Professor Andrew Przybylski, who worked on both studies.

" But contrary to what we might pe Whether games are good or bad for us, we found [in this latest study] pretty strong evidence that how much you play doesn't really have any bearing on changes in well-being.

"If players played because they wanted to, rather than because they felt they had to, they had to, they tended to feel better."

This time, tech companies including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo provided six-week data - with gamers' consent - from:

Animal Crossing: New HorizonsApex LegendsEve OnlineForza Horizon 4Gran Turismo SportThe Crew 2

During this period only one player dropped out the study - published in the Royal Society Open Science journal.