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A study of 39,000 video gamers has found "little to no evidence" time spent playing affects their well-being.
The average player would have to play for 10 hours more than usual per day to notice any difference, it found. And the reasons for playing were far more likely to have an impact.
Well-being was measured by asking about life satisfaction and levels of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and frustration.
The results contradict a 2020 study.
Conducted by the same department at the Oxford Internet Institute - but with a much smaller group of players - the 2020 study had suggested that those who played for longer were happier.
"Common sense says if you have more free time to play video games, you're probably a happier person," said Prof Andrew Przybylski, who worked on both studies.
"But contrary to what we might think about games being good or bad for us, we found [in this latest study] pretty conclusive evidence that how much you play doesn't really have any bearing whatsoever on changes in well-being.
"If players were playing because they wanted to, rather than because they felt compelled to, they had to, they tended to feel better."
The average player would have to play for 10 hours more than usual per day to notice any difference, it found. And the reasons for playing were far more likely to have an impact.
Well-being was measured by asking about life satisfaction and levels of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and frustration.
The results contradict a 2020 study.
Conducted by the same department at the Oxford Internet Institute - but with a much smaller group of players - the 2020 study had suggested that those who played for longer were happier.
"Common sense says if you have more free time to play video games, you're probably a happier person," said Prof Andrew Przybylski, who worked on both studies.
"But contrary to what we might think about games being good or bad for us, we found [in this latest study] pretty conclusive evidence that how much you play doesn't really have any bearing whatsoever on changes in well-being.
"If players were playing because they wanted to, rather than because they felt compelled to, they had to, they tended to feel better."
Gaming time has no link with levels of wellbeing, study finds
Researchers analysed the gaming habits of 39,000 players of big titles such as Animal Crossing.
www.bbc.com
