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Category: Project

Description: Studies on video games and well-being often rely on self-report measures or data from a single game. Here, we study how 703 US adults' time spent playing over 150 1st-party Nintendo Switch games (totaling 140k hours) relates to their life satisfaction, affect, depressive symptoms, and general mental well-being. We replicate previous findings that playtime over the past 2 weeks does not predict well-being, and extend these findings to a wider range of timescales (1 hour to 1 year). Results suggest that relationships, if present, dissipate within 2 hours of gameplay. Our non-causal findings suggest substantial confounding would be needed to shift a meaningful true effect to the observed null. Although playtime was not related to well-being, players’ assessments of the value of game time—so called gaming life fit—was. Results emphasize the importance of defining the gaming population of interest, collecting data from more than one game, and focusing on how players integrate gaming into their lives rather than the amount of time spent.