Oxford Study: Those Dastardly Video Games Are Good For Improving Your Mood
from the you-don't-say dept
As someone who has evangelized for the video game industry and how games, long villainized by parents, politicians, and police, are actually either a neutral or positive force for the public and culture, I never shy away from sharing studies that demonstrate this. While a great deal of time has been spent on discussions of the impact of violent video games, it would be untrue to claim that the gaming industry in general hasn’t been targeted for all kinds of negative claims. It turns people into lazy game-junkies. It keeps people from experiences in real life. Hell, it’s a threat to the global population, with men (only men!) too busy playing video games to procreate and keep the human race going.
Meanwhile, all kinds of studies have come out about the positive impact of playing some video games. The University of Oxford had a study correlating gameplay with gamers self-reporting an increase in “well being.” An NIH study found gaming to be a good treatment for depression. And now we have another Oxford study, conducted with thousands of gamers playing a commercially available game played in their home setting, that correlates improvement in mood with gameplay.
The study analysed data from players in 39 countries, including the US, UK, Canada and Germany and found that PWS players’ moods rapidly increased during gameplay. Players consistently reported a higher mood after the first fifteen minutes of the play session compared to the start of each session.
Lead author Assistant Professor Matti Vuorre, Tilburg University and Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute said:
‘At present short-term changes in video game players’ moods are poorly understood. Gameplay research frequently relies on artificial stimuli, with games created or modified by academic researchers, typically played in a lab environment rather than a natural context. Instead, we wanted to know how real play in natural contexts might predict player mood on short timescales.’
It’s important to note that this is studying short term mood effects, rather than mid- or long-term effects on mood. Still, the point is that there is an emotional well-being lift as a result of playing games in this study. The game played here is PowerWash Simulator, or a slightly modified version of it. Not a violent game, nor one that is rife with quick-twitch action. The only real modification to the game was the inclusion of a “researcher” character that would pop up in game to ask the player to self-report their mood level.
Now, there will be some out there that will look at this study with narrow eyes. I can already hear them comparing this to dopamine hits gained when using illicit drugs. Surely a heroin addict would report an uplift in mood after getting a fix, or some such nonsense like that. But the more proper analogy, according to this study, is not with drugs, but rather with other forms of entertainment.
The researchers found that the average player’s mood increased by approximately 0.034 units (on a 0-1 scale), from the beginning of the session to during play and the bulk of the improvement occurs for the average player after 15 minutes of gameplay. This change is comparable with changes seen in other leisure activities such as reading, shopping, or listening to music.
They also looked at differences in mood uplift between the population of similar PWS players. The Oxford team statistically modelled between-person differences in mood shifts in the population of PWS players. They found that nearly three-quarters of players (72.1%) were likely to experience an uplift in their mood during PWS play.
The study rightly cautions against trying to extrapolate these results into some kind of encompassing “video games are great!” conclusion. Rather, it’s a data point, and the the study’s authors suggest that more research should be done using more games and more people to gather more data on the short term effects on mood of playing video games.
But what the study certainly demonstrates is that the notion that video games are generally bad for people is simplistic nonsense.
Filed Under: andrew przybylski, happiness, matti vuorre, moral panic, video games
Companies: oxford university
Comments on “Oxford Study: Those Dastardly Video Games Are Good For Improving Your Mood”
You could say the same thing about tv or playing music. There’s a wide range of video
games available now. Puzzle adventure rpg simulation people play games as a challenge and to relax and as a social activity with friends .people also watch people playing games on YouTube or twitch
When a new medium is invented and used by young people theres always a reaction that it might be a bad thing
See Rock and roll jazz comic books
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or Heavy Metal or Hip-Hop.
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Timothy you’re cool but I think you might be the last person on the planet still fighting the violent video games fight. It’s ok. Joe Lieberman is dead. You can go home. The war is over.
So is porn. 🙂
Can confirm.
Video games are part of my management regimen for staving of major depression, including the occasional bout of elevated suicidality. In fact, in these modern times of climate crisis disasters, towns literally sinking into the sea and the US being one general election away from one-party autocracy, I’ve been depending on symptom management — including video games to distract myself from the real world — more than ever.
When video games don’t come loaded with content that takes advantage of fatigue and mental illness (looking at you, lootboxes, microtransactions and FOMO marketing) they are now commonly recommended for people who suffer from mental illness, whether soldiers with PTSD or kids trying to survive school with ADHD.
That said, yes, video games are a tool in the box of mental health management. Not all games are for everyone, and in my case, it’s easy for me to obsess on a given game until I blink and suddenly I’m exhausted, famished, dehydrated and smelly.
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“US being one general election away from one-party autocracy,” it looks like kamala might actually win
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Not of Trump manages to steal the election of course.
The voting math is weird in the US, but if I remember correctly, the last time a Republican presidential candidate won the popular vote, George W. Bush got his second term in office. Democrats have won 7 elections out of the last 8 when it comes to popular vote. Republican’s have had to otherwise rely on the funny math of the EC for every other time they took the White House. For all the complaints about “rigging”, the system is actually rigged for Republican’s for the last some odd 30 years. So, it’s entirely possible Kamala can win the popular vote and still lose the election.
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so you want an autocracy then?
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Never said that. Just pointing out the possibility of funny business is all. I really hope Kamala wins so we can have some semblance of normalcy in world politics.
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sorry am just a little paranoid becuase tbh i really don’t want trump to win but i have also been taking breaks to try and manage it
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i would also avoid the guardian as they aren’t 100% trust worthy
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you just want me to feel anxious and despair do you?
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Well, I can recommend taking a break from the news from time to time (which you are already doing which I think is good).
Personally, I don’t view it as healthy to be telling people comforting lies. Of course, being a journalist myself, it’s kind of a requirement to be telling the truth. Be thankful you aren’t a journalist like myself where there is little you can do to step away from the madness. I know plenty of writers who quit because they (understandably) couldn’t take it anymore.
Re: Re: Harris might win
Here’s hoping.
Right now, there are a number of efforts to subvert election results in battleground states, and efforts to stop those. Extra sweet is the possibility North Carolina (which has gone from staunch GOP to leans GOP will be in play which might render some of these subversion efforts moot).
Then there’s the possibility of a procedural coup, which is to say Trump loyalists might try to sabotage the election and transition process. If the election is decided by the House, then Trump wins (we expect).
Then there’s the possibility of a violent coup. Pro-publica has been reporting on Trump-loyalist segments of the military as well as militia groups and police departments who might be willing to try to seize power by force. Folks from DHS have suggested they are ill-prepared for such attempts, but that is old information from when Project 2025 wasn’t as well known.
And if the violent coup is unresolved (or if Trump wins and enough Americans decide Hell, no ) we might be up for a protracted civil war, which is more likely to look like an epidemic of terror attacks than a pitched battle with lines.
So there’s a lot at play, and while it would be super-nice to see it all resolved and at peace with Harris sworn in on January 20th, I can’t trust it until I see it happen. 2016 and 2020 both had too much chaos to infer a quotidian 2024 election.
That said, I hope Harris wins and is sworn in, and I hope she is able to pass a regimen of election reform, judicial reform, regulatory reform and social safety nets to pull the US working class out of precarity, which, according to CIA analysts, is the recipe for pulling away from the precipice of one-party autocracy. And that is a supersized ask.
Miles to go before we sleep.
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“Folks from DHS have suggested they are ill-prepared for such attempts, but that is old information from when Project 2025 wasn’t as well known.” yea i think harris said there more prepared now
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FYI, ADHD is no more a mental illness than autism is. Or are you trying to tell us you believe you’re mentally ill?
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🥱
Re: Re: Mental illness.
I’ve been contending with major depression for my entire life. Was diagnosed in my early twenties.
Around fifty, I was diagnosed with ASD, and was the subject of my therapist’s PHD thesis.
What of it?
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*whoooooooosh!*
Re: Re: Re:2 Nothing goes over my head!
My reflexes are too fast! I would catch it!
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Could you please answer the question I actually asked? Since ADHD is no more a mental illness than autism is, but you have claimed otherwise, do you believe your autism to be a mental illness and you are thus mentally ill because you are autistic? I didn’t ask for proof of diagnosis. I don’t care about that and only challenge if there’s sufficient evidence that someone who’s said they’re autistic is not on the spectrum at all.
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I receive SSI and Medicaid due to my autism, so yeah, I’d say the government qualifies it as a disability.
Re: Re: Re:2 What's your actual point?
I infer from your pressure on this particular issue, whether or not ASD or ADHD is regarded as a mental illness is important to you.
And from that I infer the term mental illness means more to you than it does to me. This is dangerous since I don’t know what.
In the 20th century when we assumed that crazy people were axe-killers like Pamela Voorhees and consequently no-one wanted to be assessed and treated (even though the US has been dealing with a mental illness epidemic for decades now). Diagnoses and mental health challenges should not become social stigmas.
I can’t say I trust where you’re going. It shouldn’t matter whether ADHD or ASD is a mental illness. A diagnosis is a tool to guide the treatment of a patient. It’s not supposed to be a means by which patients are stigmatized or denied rights.
I, too, qualify for SSI for disability, but it’s on the grounds of major depression, what is the most common mental health diagnosis in the US. Outside of potential use in my treatment, my ASD diagnosis is not of concern to the government.
Why do you care so much whether ADHD is a mental illness or not?
Maybe if we let the little bastards play the video games more they wouldn’t have as many homicidal ideas to play out in schools instead.
But then that would turn that whole “everyone knows” video games cause school shootings on its head & an entire industry might fail.
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It might be beneficial to have a realistic version of the Sims or Simcity for our elected officials to use in their extensive evaluations of their proposals prior to public disclosure, it could reduce the egg on face scenario experienced by many a politician.
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That would feed into their god complex a bit to much I fear.
Re: Then what about the Sandy Hook killer?
Investigations into AL revealed that his favorite game was Dance Dance Revolution which obviously figured largely into his plans for the massacre.
The devices of the devil are pervasive and insidious!
Not only men
I found that women are enjoying video games quite a lot lately.
The difference? There are games on devices they can access, and have the time to play. Phones and mobile games must be included when we talk about gaming. Women have finally gotten access to many games, such they can try a few, or a lot, to find a game they enjoy.
The other type of woman, aka a gamer girl, has already succumbed to the lure of game consoles and hand held devices. They needed no push to jump in.
Not only men play video games…
The notion that only men and boys play video games is a false one. For instance, trans women like me play them (and make music and software on them!), and cis women (like Niamh “Chipzel” Houston) do the same!
Games are for everyone!