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Comment by blackbrokkoli | Hacker News Reader

So they collaborated with EA, a company so infamous for anti-consumer practices like real-money gambling for minors that they are basically synonymous with "evil" within the gaming subculture and found out...that EA games make you happy!

If you are actually interested in this topic, there are a lot of reviews including way longer periods, variables and genres. Of course, you still have to apply the same filter to sift through moral panic and game ads, but this study is even if not biased still unnecessarily limited in scope. Not a good base for a discussion IMO...

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> and found out...that EA games make you happy!

correlation does not indicate direction of causation; it is just as valid to conclude that happy people had more time to play games.

And it may just be that happiness and video game playing are both correlated with something else, like having a lot of leisure time and/or a lot of discretionary spending money.

That’s generally how it’s been for me, the happier I am the more energy I have for habits like this, which take a non zero amount of effort to play.

Conversely when I’m feeling down this is the first thing to go, I can desire to play and just sit there for hours not doing so.

Thank you for writing this.

Do you have a summary of the research, given your interest in the topic?

It's notoriously difficult to study because you can't tell some 6-year old that they should become a gamer as that is what your random number generator wants them to do.

But, it's also difficult to study because the effect size, whatever it direction may be, is rather small. (nobody ever agreed to a double-blind experiment proving that bullets kill, just as a point of comparison).

From what I read back when it interested me, it seems suggestive of a mild negative effect. But it's hard to say because of the absolutely overwhelming effect of in the other direction: there is absolutely no doubt that eight hours or more of weekly gaming is evidence of depression for age groups 16 and up. (valid for PC/console only. Gaming on mobile phones is often more indicative of using public transport than anything else).

"There is absolutely no doubt that eight hours or more of weekly gaming is evidence of depression for age groups 16 and up."

But is it a form of self medication or pathology?

Being over 16 and gaming too much is an obvious probable pathology, but I would not see pathology as the only interpretation.

I had a pretty dark time in my life during which Kerbal Space Program may well have saved my life (by taking my mind completely off the bad stuff and giving a nice boost of the positive brain transmitters).

There are definitely people who escape into video games to avoid dealing with problems in the real world.

Perhaps this is a good thing in the short term (your experience definitely seems to suggest this!), but anecdotally many of the long-term, heavy games-players I know (mid-20s) seem to be taking on less responsibility, investing less into themselves, their future and the people around them, and failing to live up to their potential in a noticeable way.

Very similar to weed smokers, thinking about it.

The dopamine profile of doing this can't be great.

> there is absolutely no doubt that eight hours or more of weekly gaming is evidence of depression for age groups 16 and up.

Surely it depends on the game and the context; that would encompass just about anyone who plays Civilization.

> there is absolutely no doubt that eight hours or more of weekly gaming is evidence of depression for age groups 16 and up.

From whom?

> there is absolutely no doubt that eight hours or more of weekly gaming is evidence of depression for age groups 16 and up.

Since you're putting it forth as an absolute truth, surely you'd have no problem providing us all with a citation; would you be so kind?

I tried to find a link on pubmed about depression and gaming.

"Depressive symptoms and suicidal are associated to screen time induced poor sleep, digital device night use, and mobile phone dependency." (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29499467/)

This other study (http://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/27290/7/27290_Kuss.pdf) seems to show some association between depression and addictive use of video games (The criteria for addiction is not about length but rather about how the behavior is effecting the person life). It should be noted however that social media has a slightly higher association with depression.

I doubt there is evidence that eight hours or more of weekly gaming would be any kind of evidence of depression for age groups 16 and up. If a person, of any age group, uses games or social media to the point where it prevents them from function in society and they don't sleep, then that is likely associated with risk of depression. Not 100%, but maybe with a pearson correlation coefficient of r=0.25.

Now I should really stop writing on HN and get some sleep before people called me depressed.

> there is absolutely no doubt that eight hours or more of weekly gaming is evidence of depression for age groups 16 and up

I doubt that. Many critically acclaimed single player games take from 40 up to 120 hours to complete, so 8 hours a week puts you on track to play through one game in a month.

From an outsiders perspective that seems really reasonable? If I put 8 hours of reading per week in, then I would probably finish 1-2 books per month. How many games should one be finishing in a month?

It's individual and also depends on the game (some are much shorter like 8 hours, some can absorb 100s of hours, some games don't have a clear "end"), but one per 1-2 months with a break in between gives you high quality entertainment and it's an enriching experience.

I'd say that's a typical pace for an adult gamer with a job.

Books are a good analogy for the single player games with a definite ending. The satisfaction I get from completing them is similar (but not exactly the same).

What evidence? It would be impossible to quantify this, but I'd love to see the data that makes this assertion. I'm arguing that anything less than 8 hours a week means you're not playing enough or you don't enjoy gaming as much as others might.

> there is absolutely no doubt that eight hours or more of weekly gaming is evidence of depression for age groups 16 and up

Based on what? Is there good evidence for this, or is this anecdotal? I think that's a far more complex statement that it appears on the surface, and I don't think I agree with the strong "no doubt" part of it. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise though.

Nothing too concise, I am afraid. I think your best chance is to focus on a specific question that interests you. I will give you an answer in relation to some specific variables I did a deep dive on:

Video games and short term aggression: Enough findings for me to prefer giving my (not currently existing) children something to do that are not video games if possible, lest they learn unnecessarily aggressive behavior just by copying. However, probably not a mortal danger.

Video games and (adult/teen) addiction: Seems incredibly hard to track on a long-term base, as other people in this thread mention. Nothing is easier to color a bit to your liking than a meta analysis with small effect sizes, if you should be so inclined. On the other hand, good arguments can be made that excessive gaming behavior is very, very similar to excessive alcohol consumption, gambling or smoking - in regards to brain chemistry, slow drifting decline of societal function or even excuses made to the self. Thus, personally I treat gaming with the same seriousness as other potentially addictive things.

Hope that helps a bit, and good luck on your research journey. Maybe you even find some wider spanning reviews that are new, we live in a good era of terminating twenty-year studies :)

Yep, it would have been much more believable if they didn't involve EA's predatory titles...

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