How a dire shortage of video game consoles helped prove that gaming boosts mental health
He already had one of the handheld game devices, but he also had two sons who were old enough to fight over it. The only way to maintain the peace in his family’s Tokyo home was to acquire a second unit.
So many parents had the same idea that stores in Japan quickly sold out. When the gaming consoles were back in stock, retailers held lotteries to ensure that everyone who wanted to buy one had an equal chance to do so.
Egami, an economist at Nihon University in Tokyo, quickly recognized that the lottery system could double as a natural experiment and shed light on a question that had been on his mind for years: Are video games actually detrimental to players’ mental health?
“People usually say that video games are harmful and you should decrease the time your children are playing,” he said. “As a father, I’ve been wondering whether it’s true.”
Not long before, the World Health Organization stirred up controversy by adding a condition called gaming disorder to the International Classification of Diseases. The ailment describes people who are so consumed by video games that they’re unable to control their playing behavior — even when it puts their health, their relationships with family and friends, and their livelihoods in jeopardy.
