A study of nearly 100,000 people in Japan has found that gaming can be good for players' mental health, contrary to the prevailing narrative surrounding the popular pastime.
This Is Your Child's Brain on Video Games | WSJ
Although popular opinion claims that video games can be bad for you, and the World Health Organization has labeled gaming disorder a health condition, there is little in the body of scientific evidence to suggest a strong link between video games and mental health. Recent observational studies have recorded both positive and negative effects, researchers report.
A new study published in Nature Human Behavior used data from the shortage of game consoles in Japan during the pandemic to help understand whether games, the most popular form of local entertainment, have negative effects on mental health.
In 2020 to 2022, Japanese retailers used lotteries to assign two different consoles to consumers. Hiroyuki Egami, an economist at Nihon University in Tokyo, worked with his colleagues to use this random distribution to try to understand how video games can affect distress and satisfaction in life.
