Video Games' Effects on Mental Health

Summary

One of the most frequent arguments I see used against video games is that they can worsen mental health or create mental health issues. Some researchers are finally starting to look into this and, while those results are based on player estimates, they are positive! There is an original study that was made to look into this, as well as an article explaining it so you don’t have to dig through the whole study. What makes this study tricky is that it was done using estimated playtime, not official recorded playtime. However, it still managed to show a positive correlation in the amount of time those participants played video games for and the effect on their mental health, with those who played, or estimated that they played more, having a greater mental benefit from it! However, I’m not here to talk about the science behind everything, or even about that particular study itself. I’m here to talk about the actual positive effects you can see on the mental health of gamers. Gaming can boost mental health by providing a community, a safe place for self-expression, and a sense of accomplishment, all while boosting other mental health skills like memory, problem-solving, and reflexes. Some of these things are fairly obvious, while others might be more discrete influences, but influences nonetheless.

Table of Contents

1. Communities.

2. Video Games as a Safe Space.

3. Identity and Representation.

4. Video Games and Mental Health.

1. Communities.

One of the biggest things I come back to in gaming is the sense of community. The community is a very important aspect of gaming, as I bring up in most things I write that are associated with gaming. This is, in part, because so much of who I am today, including my mental health, I owe to the people I’ve found through gaming and the communities I’ve joined. In fact, the community I spend most of my time in is the reason I finally came out as a member of the LGBTQIA+ community. The vast majority of this particular community, including the streamer who built it, are LGBTQIA+ in one way or another, and they’ve been there for me when people I’d known since childhood just weren’t. They’ve become the family I didn’t know I was missing.

The ability to interact with like-minded people who face similar challenges is incredibly helpful and integral to my well-being, and it is gaming that brought me here and allows for that community to exist. I struggle with severe social anxiety and sensory processing disorders, which means most of my social needs are met online through both gaming and the community I’ve found. I have people I can play games with who will never judge me for who I am or my play styles and encourage me to try new things –be it games or just taking a chance on a new path in life. This is something that I think most people with disabilities can also relate to in that there is a place where they can exist without limits, which is something that can't be taken away, nor should it be taken for granted.

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2. Video Games as a Safe Space.

Which brings me to the next point; taking chances in life and being true to oneself can be extremely challenging. This is especially true for members of the LGBTQIA+ community who often have to hide who they are, whether it be gender or sexual identity. Video games allow for a level of self-expression that isn’t allowed, or always safe to express, in much of the physical world. The inclusion and freedom for self-expression that video games provide can have a massive, positive impact on those who can’t fully express themselves elsewhere. Even those who live in an inclusive environment but may have other barriers towards their self-expression can benefit from the ability to live vicariously through the characters on screen. They can change the world or incite chaos, or even just make friends and create a town molded in a way that only they can.

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3. Representation & Identity

Not only that, but the power that representation holds in games is immense. One of my favorite things about video games is the ability to be someone who we can’t be in real life. We can be fearless. We can be chaotic. We can calm the chaos. We can bring that person we want to be to life. Games provide a sense of freedom that a lot of the world doesn’t have, and when you see a character in a game that represents you, or the person that you want to be, that’s validating. It shows that there are people out there making games who see you and have been where you are and even where you are going to be. Members of the trans community can find visibility in games like Celeste or create their true selves in The Sims and members of the LGBTQIA+ community as a whole can find kinship and express themselves through sim games, be it The Sims or a farming sim with no limits on which characters you can romance, or even games like Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, that let you romance someone of the opposite or same gender, should you choose to, while focusing on fighting for the things you hold most important in life.

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4. Video Games & Mental Health.

That ability to fight for what’s right can not only be validating for one’s identity, but also brings a sense of accomplishment that can be a massive, positive influence in mental health. But, what gives us that sense of accomplishment? I think a big part of it is seeing how you grow as a gamer and a person. It can be easy to feel defeated when you try again and again to beat a level or a game and just can’t quite get it. We’ve all been there and it’s not fun to accept that you just don’t have the reflexes for a game. But then you try again, maybe a few days later, maybe a month later, maybe it even takes you a year to try again. However, that time, you get it.

That happened to me with Ori and the Blind Forest a few years ago. I first tried to play it fresh out of a cast, post-hand surgery, and my muscles and reflexes just were not up to the task. While it was upsetting, which admittedly is not a benefit, it was motivating. It drove me to work at getting my hand stronger and getting those reflexes back and, a year later, I beat the game. I remember crying because I had finally done it. It was something tangible where I could see the rewards of my work. After that first win, I started setting goals to challenge myself – could I do it with a lower death count at the end, or on a harder difficulty, or get more achievements? It gave me more challenges, which forced me to think creatively and rely on memory so I didn’t have to back track so much.

Games that challenge you mentally, while they can be frustrating in the moment, are truly beneficial to mental health because they help you see the world differently. They challenge you to do things you might not believe you can do. Most of them do this by having a reward system or even just an achievement on Steam saying you completed the game or accomplished some other task. Take A Little to the Left, for example. You can get achievements for using hints, but also for using none. My favorite, however, is that there are two different notifications at the end of each chapter! You get one for completing it, and another for 100% solving everything, which means finding all of the solutions to puzzles with multiple solutions. Reaching these goals or unlocking new achievements shows an increase of skills like reaction time and the ability to problem solve, or at least improve memory skills by remembering how certain puzzles work and the easiest ways to solve them. While these things may not have an obvious effect on mental health, that impact is still there and can be seen in the way we interact with other games, the world, and one another.

I do believe that it’s also common for those with mental health challenges to fall into video games as a way to distract and, in some cases, heal. I know I have leaned on games many times to keep my mind off of something or to process a loss and let go, like when I finally played Lost Words: Beyond the Page. That one was rough to get through because it mirrored a loss that I had suffered but the act of playing through the trauma in game and helping the character heal and recover from it also helped me to heal and accept my own loss. We don’t need something happy to make a video game have a positive impact.

The stories that hurt to play because of how we relate to them are as beneficial to mental health as the games where you can casually shape your own world with no pressure. Video games are therapeutic because they give us the power to change something. That power exists whether you play alone or with friends, be it for fun or a competition. All those hours spent in front of the platform, or platforms, you prefer are crucial because they allow you to step back from reality and disconnect. It gives a chance to reset by providing an escape from reality. It’s an escape into a fictional world, yes, but that world depends on the player to save it or shape it. While not all games require a hero, all games hold the power to become a hero to someone at some point in time.

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