14 DAY TRIAL // The early results of a study that was conducted in Australia have correlated excessive time spent with video game with a bigger presence of depression and anxiety, although the researcher will need more time to flesh out the results.
The study has also found that excessive gamers tend to perform better than they expected when it comes to academic affairs and has also shown that spending a lot of time playing does not adversesly affect success at work.
The study is being conducted at the Victory University in Australia and is working on watching links between the “academic results, relationships and physical and mental health” of those groups of gamers.
The first one is made up of individuals who spend less than 21 hours playing video games during one week while the other group managed to put in more time than that, although the exact amount was not mentioned.
The group that played more reported an increase of 25 percent when it comes to depression and a rise of 15% linked to overall stress and anxiety.
They are also said to be more interested in using video games as a coping mechanics in order to escape other problems in their lives.
Daniel Loto, who is the leader of the group conducting the study, has stated, “But most alarming was that excessive gamers scored more than half the maximum measure for each and enough to determine clinical significance.”
The study has only seen a correlation between time spent with video games and depression and anxiety and has not established a casual link between the two.
It could be that those who tend to spend more hours with games to do so because they already have elevated levels of anxiety and depression and not the other way around.
The researcher group at Victoria University is looking for more participants for their study and they hope that expanding the group of gamers studied will also make the results clearer.