New study reveals positive mood changes during video game play
Playing video games can be good for your mood, according to a new international study from researchers at the Oxford Internet Institute, part of the University of Oxford.
The study analysed data from players in 39 countries, including the US, UK, Canada and Germany and found that PWS players’ moods rapidly increased during gameplay. Players consistently reported a higher mood after the first fifteen minutes of the play session compared to the start of each session.
The research team from the Oxford Internet Institute carried out the study to understand more about the short-term effects of playing video games.
Lead author Assistant Professor Matti Vuorre, Tilburg University and Research Associate at the Oxford Internet Institute said:
'At present short-term changes in video game players’ moods are poorly understood. Gameplay research frequently relies on artificial stimuli, with games created or modified by academic researchers, typically played in a lab environment rather than a natural context. Instead, we wanted to know how real play in natural contexts might predict player mood on short timescales.'
The researchers collaborated with PWS’s developer, FuturLab, to develop a research edition of the game that recorded gameplay events, game status records, participant demographics and responses to psychological survey items. This latest analysis is based on a dataset the team previously published in the journal Scientific Data last year.
