Study: Video Games May Make People Happier
A study from the University of Oxford has found that people who spend more time playing video games may be happier and have a better feeling of well-being than those who play less.
The study looked at 3,274 people, all of whom were over 18 years old, who played Nintendo's Animal Crossing: New Horizons and Electronic Arts' Plants vs. Zombies: Battle for Neighborville.
The players answered questions about their well-being, and agreed to let the game companies share data with the researchers about how much time they spent playing.
The authors say this is the first study to use data on people's real play time. In past studies, players were only asked how much time they had spent gaming — but the Oxford study found that people thought they played an average of two hours more than they really did.
The study also found that people who gamed more over a two-week period reported having a better feeling of well-being than those who played less.
"If you play Animal Crossing for four hours a day, every single day, you're likely to say you feel significantly happier than someone who doesn't," professor Andrew Przybylski, the study's lead author, told the BBC.
Przybylski said that past research had shown that the longer people spent playing video games, the unhappier they said they were. The professor said that players might have reported feeling happier in the new study because the games were very social, allowing people to play with friends or other players.
However, the researchers only looked at two games, and they said they could not be sure that playing longer was actually what made people feel happier.
