by [name redacted]

Originally published in, I believe, the October issue of Play Magazine.

A new study of gamer health, conducted by the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Emory and Andrews Universities and published in the October issue of the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, observes a correlation between extensive videogame use, obesity, and depression.

The expectation going in was that gamers would tend to have a higher body mass index, and “a greater number of poor mental health days” than non-gamers; after studying 552 adults in and around Seattle, that assumption looks pretty much true.

Where it gets interesting is that research found that gamers tend to use videogames as a coping mechanism, to escape from their real-world problems. An apparent side effect of habitual play is obsessive compulsive behavior in regard to playing, to the point of an emotional dependency.

Far from demonize the medium, though, the study goes on to ponder about how to help people steer clear of the kind of unhealthy repetitive reinforcement that videogames tend to provide, how the “potentially positive” elements of videogames might be “harnessed”, and what role videogames might ideally play in society.

As to how videogames might be used to promote mental and physical health rather than disease, more research is needed. Presumably one big step is to stop rewarding obsessive-compulsive behavior.