Playing video games may be good for your mental health, according to a large new study conducted in Japan during the COVID-19 pandemic.
When the pandemic upended global supply chains in 2020, demand for video games far outpaced the available supply, so Japanese retailers used a lottery system to decide who could buy two major consoles, the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5 (PS5).
Researchers saw an opportunity for a natural experiment on how this random distribution of games played out.
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They surveyed nearly 98,000 people – including about 8,200 people who participated in the lottery – and found that getting a console curbed people’s psychological distress and improved their life satisfaction.
Playing games also improved their overall mental well-being, according to the study, which was published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour.
In real terms, the impact on gamers was likely "minor but perceptible," Nick Ballou, a postdoctoral researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute who studies the link between gaming and mental health and was not involved in the new study, told Euronews Health.
The dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic could have skewed the results, given people generally had poorer mental health and were less able to socialise and pursue other hobbies, particularly in the pandemic’s early months.
"We have lots of evidence that people turned to games as a lifeline in the early part of the pandemic," Ballou said. His own work found that games helped some people cope with the mental toll of the COVID-19 era.
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Even so, the study is among the first to establish a causal relationship between video games and mental health.
Researchers also identified differences between the consoles, with PS5 ownership having a greater effect on boys and men as well as “hardcore gamers”, and Switch ownership "slightly favouring" girls and women, as well as people who hadn’t gamed much before winning the lottery.
"This hints at a lot of interesting future questions about how different products affect our lives in different ways," Mike Cook, a senior lecturer in computer science at King’s College London who was not involved with the study, said in a statement.
Concerns about gaming addiction
More than half of the European population regularly plays video games, and the EU video games sector brought in €23.48 billion in 2022.
Yet despite their popularity, video games have long elicited concern from parents, policymakers, and health experts.
In a controversial 2018 move, for example, the World Health Organization (WHO) classified gaming disorder as a clinical syndrome characterised by a lack of control over gaming, prioritising gaming over daily life and other activities, and continuing to game despite “negative consequences” for their relationships with family or friends, education, work, or personal lives.
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Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, people with gaming addictions can receive medical treatment at the National Health Service (NHS)’s National Centre for Gaming Disorders. Between October 2019 and March 2023, 745 people were referred to the clinic.
Beyond addiction itself, other studies have found mixed results on the link between video games, mental well-being, aggression, and cognitive function.
The new analysis may help shift the narrative around gaming, leading to a clearer distinction between players who derive real benefits from video games and those who struggle as a result of play.
"Vilification of games still happens, but in general the conversation now is much more nuanced: for most people most of the time, the goods outweigh the bads, but there are undoubtedly people experiencing harm," Ballou said.
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