Video Games and Mental Health Science vs Stigma

At RTX 2013, I had the rare opportunity to listen to an extremely educational panel about mental health among gamers. The study was/is being performed by Kelli Dunlap, also known as Goosechecka through the Grifballhub community. Currently, Goose is finishing her doctorate in psychology and is trying to get her research published. The research she chose to do is on the mental health of regular gamers. Specifically, she is trying to focus on the current stigma that gamers are in some way damaged people. At one point, she told a story about how she "outed" herself as a gamer to her colleagues and was met with responses like, "I didn't know you were one of them." Pure comedy, that.

One of Us!

The panel was quite enjoyable to watch, and extremely informative. Kelli is clearly passionate about her research (and about her hobby!) and it comes out when she speaks about it. Of note is her ability to understand the  current research. It's one thing to read a study that someone else has published, but it's something entirely different to be able to take it apart and see where it is most flawed. In the case of Kelli, she not only disassembled the most widely cited research to date, she very clearly showed how these studies are flawed and damaging to the current views of gaming.


Mrs. Dunlap's research is targeted towards testing the current media and social stigmas that surround video games. I don't think anyone will disagree that there is still a negative stigma about gaming and gamers. The panel addressed the current belief that violent video games causing violent behavior - something that most of us have heard about. Kelli also addressed the stigma of who plays video games -  the current image of gamers being overweight, awkward, children who hang out in their parents' basements. Interestingly, one of the more popular shows on television, Big Bang Theory, includes most of these stereotypes. It is important to Kelli, in addressing mental heath of gamers, to discuss these current stigmas.

As Mrs. Dunlap began by pointed out that her study was performed on gamers themselves. In many of the previous studies, this sort of research was performed on everyone, not just people who identify themselves as gamers. This is the difference between studying animals in a zoo vs in their own habitat. The participants in her study were asked to take a survey that included a number of questions about their perceived mental health, their gaming habits, their work lives, their home lives - all sorts of things. In total, these surveys had over 400 questions. They waited 30 days to send out the same survey to the people taking the studies. During the 30 day time lapse, Kelli used Raptor data on gamer's gaming habits. Raptor is a program that monitors length of play and types of games. This is important because you're sampling gamers in their "natural habitat" you're not giving them a random game that they may not like, you're testing them playing the games they want to play in their own homes under their own schedules. It's an important distinction that observing gamers, rather than anyone who is available for the test. Additionally, these people are not in a laboratory setting, which has a tendency to modify behavior on its own.

Kelli ended up taking all this data and collating it in a few ways that would address the issues from her study. Interestingly, one of the only things that accurately predicted mental states was a gamer's expectations of playtime vs. actual playtime. What this means it that the gamers that didn't play as much as they have expected to (wanted to?) play were the ones to show more mental health symptoms like depression and "trait anger," which is a fancy way of saying their normal level of anger - without external stimuli. Additionally, this result only explained a very small effect. Something like 1% of her samples had this correlation. Of note at this point is that people who live in an altered mental state (like depression, like constant anger) tend to see the world differently than normal people. I know... it's shocking and I was just as blown away as you are...

This opened the door to another question that Kelli wanted to answer: do your beliefs about gaming affect your gaming habits? In order to answer this question, it had to be broken down even further:

Do you use video gaming as a replacement for therapy?
-are you using gaming in stead of seeking professional help?
Do you use video games to socialize or are video games your main way to socialize?
-do you socialize while you game, or are you of the opinion that gaming is the only way you can socialize?
Do you use video games to relax or are you using video games to lose yourself?
-do you play games to relax, or are you finding that you lose track of time and that you only reluctantly stop playing games?

According to the data collected in the study, Kelli found that the only group of people who accurately predicted their play habits were those people who use gaming as a form of relaxation. The other two groups didn't show any real connection to their expected play vs actual play.

 Now Kelli addressed the juicy part of her study: Do games cause any sort of pathology? Meaning, do playing video games actually change your behaviors or cause any sort of long-term affect on mood? What Kelli found was that duration of play in video games causes NO affect on mental state. Based on the responses of the people taking the study, the gamers that played games much more than others had no difference in their mental health. Second, the results showed that people who played shooters - games like Halo and Call of Duty - showed a reduction in anxiety. When I asked Kelli if there was anything in her study that really blew her mind, she said it was this. No one expected that this type of game would actually help reduce anxiety. Lastly, their study showed that anyone who plays a non-shooter game showed a slight increase in state anger - the type of anger one feels caused by something outside themselves and is temporary. Of note, however, was the fact that gamers show less state anger than the average person, even with their "heightened" levels.

So what does all this mean? That's a very good question and it was addressed during the panel. It turns out that using gaming another way to interact socially tends to reduce depression levels. Those people that play games with their friends or to make new friends tended to have a lowered state of depression. Those people that play video games as a way to relax after work or after a difficult week showed reduced levels of anxiety after playing first-person shooters like Halo and Call of Duty. If you want to chill out and just play some Halo, chances are that it will reduce your anxiety. People who use video games as a form of therapy, and this is clinical levels of depression or anxiety disorders, should know that gaming showed no affect on mood. If you need therapy, you should get it. Video games will not substitute proper therapy. Of note is that these affects only work on people who are in a currently healthy state of mind. Meaning that people who would be on the negative spectrum of gaming (only happy while playing, or can't socialize other than gaming) would have little benefit from playing games.

The last point I would like to address from this panel is one that cannot be answered by this study. Does a negative use of gaming affect your mood or does the current negative perception of gaming affect your mood? To make the distinction, negative use of gaming is when you can't make friends outside of gaming, or using gaming as therapy could be what actually affects your mood. Constant lack of success in endeavors outside of gaming, and going to gaming to fix your problems, could be what is creating a mood disorder. On the other side of this issue: is it people in your life telling you that gaming is only for socially ostracized people, or people who can't make friends, what's actually causing your pathology? Have you learned from their negative perceptions of gaming to view gaming as a negative activity? The study can't address these issues and it's a fundamental question that would be very difficult to study.

To Summarize, according to this study:
1) Gamers are not any crazier than anyone else.
2) In the absence of external stimuli, gaming will not make you crazy.
3) Gaming is a great way to socialize so long as it's not your only way to socialize.
4) Games are a great way to relax, but people can get lost in them.
5) Video games will NOT replace therapy - seek help if you need it.

Kelli won a $10k scholarship from Twitch.tv, Alienware, and SteelSeries to aid her research

Please, those of us who are gamers: don't let society dictate how you feel about gaming. We love the games we play and we love the hobby. This is not something we should ever apologize for. Keep things in moderation, and make sure you are happy with who you are.

-Jack

If you'd like to see a similar panel at PAX, check here

Thank you, Kelli, for proofreading this for me <3

Images courtesy of Twitch.tv