Videogames and wellbeing: A comprehensive review

Responding to concerns about the negative impacts of videogames on young people’s mental health, as\ud well as emerging evidence of positive impacts of videogames, the Young and Well CRC’s Gaming\ud Research Group have compiled this report on the state of play of research linking videogame play and\ud flourishing mental health. The report specifically explores the role of videogames in young people’s lives\ud and how technology can be used to improve mental health and wellbeing. It is designed to develop\ud understandings about the positive intersection of gaming and wellbeing, to document evidence\ud regarding links between videogames and positive mental health and to provide guidelines for use by\ud other researchers as they design specific tools and games to improve mental health and wellbeing for\ud young Australians.\ud \ud There is a range of evidence suggesting that videogames have a positive impact on young people’s\ud wellbeing. Existing research suggests that videogames contribute to young people’s emotional, social\ud and psychological wellbeing. Specially, videogames have been shown to positively influence young\ud people’s emotional state, self-esteem, optimism, vitality, resilience, engagement, relationships, sense of\ud competence, self-acceptance and social connections and functioning. Emerging research suggests that\ud how young people play as well as whom they play with may be more important in terms of wellbeing\ud than what they play. Further research is needed to explore key questions including the moderating\ud influence of personal characteristics on the relationship between videogames and wellbeing and\ud extending existing research by replicating findings across game types, demographic samples and play\ud environments