I considered many titles for this short review. It could have read “Gaming Improves Mental Health of Teenagers” — that may have garnered a few more clicks — not strictly true though. It could also have read “Gaming Has No Impacts on Mental Health of Teenagers”, however, the data can be seen in two ways.
So, I settled on the simple question so as not to mislead too much. But the long and short of it is that we do not need to be overly concerned with gaming rotting our kids’ brains, causing emotional withdrawal, and a host of mental health problems. In the vast majority of cases there is no impact and in a sizeable proportion heavy gaming seem to improve mental health! So, let’s dig into what this study did and didn’t find.
This data comes from the 2021 OxWell survey which analysis data from surveys of school children between 12 and 18 in the UK. This dataset had 12’725 participants. And what did they find?
They found that:
- 31.2% play games for at least 3.5 hours a day — this is the “heavy gamer” group
- There was no significant correlation between playing games and mental health issues
- 8% reported not gaming
- They classified 6 types of gamers
- 8% were classed as maladaptive (i.e…
