The number of hours a person spends playing video games doesn't affect their well-being, but their motivation to play likely has an influence, according to a new study.
While fears are often expressed about the effects of playing video games for long periods of time, this research goes against those occasional concerns. Tracking the playing time of nearly 40 participants across seven games, including Animal Cross: New Horizons and Outriders, the Oxford University study (opens in a new tab) found no causal link between time spent playing gambling and a person's mental health.
The study, which claims to be based on the largest ever survey of gamers, tracked the number of hours participants spent playing video games over a two-week period. He then measured their well-being by asking participants to reflect on their feelings during this time, as well as their overall level of satisfaction with their life.
"Across six weeks, seven games, and 38,935 players, our results suggest that the most pronounced hopes and fears about video games may be unfounded," the study said. "Time spent playing video games had little to no impact on well-being. Similarly, well-being had little to no effect on time spent playing games.
A question of motivation
In addition to recording participants' emotional states, the study asked players to reflect on their experienced sense of autonomy, competence, relatedness to others, and intrinsic motivation to play during the course of the game over a two-week period. The idea was to find out if they played because they wanted to or because they felt compelled to.
"We found that the number of players playing didn't really matter," researcher Andrew Przybylski said in a press release (opens in a new tab).
“It wasn't the quantity of play, but the quality that mattered…if they felt they had to play, they felt worse. If they played because they loved it, then the data did not suggest that it was affecting their mental health. It seemed to give them a strong positive feeling.
However, this relationship may not last longer. The study excluded all game sessions below zero and above 10 hours to mitigate logging errors. It's not clear how a person's well-being might interact with prolonged periods of play.
Seven games were used in the study, including Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Apex Legends, Eve Online, Forza Horizon 4, Gran Turismo Sport, Outriders, and The Crew 2. By working with game publishers, the research team was able to directly record the duration of the participants' gaming sessions, rather than relying on the players' own estimates.
While these titles span a variety of genres, from racing sims to MMORPGs, the study suggests that more research is needed: "To really understand why people play and in what way, we need to study a broader variety of games, genres and players”.
"These are just the first steps in the world to understand how games fit into gamers' lives," Przybylski said. "And it seems like the reason you play is the key factor. It's an exciting study, but there's still a lot of work to be done."