An international research team has suggested that video games are good for your health in a recently published study.
The international team was led by study co-authors Andrew Przybylski, a psychologist at the University of Oxford, UK, and Hiroyuki Egami, a behavioral scientist at Nihon University in Tokyo.
The new proposal comes from a new study (via Nature Magazine) that says despite stereotypes of violent video games, and even the World Health Organization officially defining video game addiction, video games can improve mental health.
The team conducted a survey of more than 97,000 people in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic, though only 8,192 replied. The team gave questionnaires to people in quarantine and had consoles, specifically gamers that entered a lottery to get PS5 and Nintendo Switch consoles (due to shortages during COVID).
The study shows that owning consoles has improved mental health in the surveyed people in general, reducing psychological stress and life satisfaction.
However, Egami did confirm that playing for more than three hours a day may not bring the same health benefits as playing just three hours a day.
Nature wrote, “Through a natural experimental approach, we demonstrated that winning a lottery for a Switch or PS5 positively impacted mental well-being for individuals aged 10–69 in Japan.”
The study confirms that Nintendo Switch ownership was favored by females and younger populations, and PlayStation 5 for males and adults without children, according to Pete Etchells, Professor of Psychology and Science Communication at Bath Spa University.
Dr. Mike Cook, Computer Science teacher at King’s College London, concurred with the study, saying “research which helps people understand the benefits of play is good for everyone, particularly when it comes to videogames which suffer from an image problem globally. Video games are not just important for children, but for adults of all ages, and are becoming increasingly important for older generations as a source of social connection and mental challenge.”
