S2: E33 | Video Games Do NOT Reduce Wellbeing

Daniel A. Kaufmann, Ph.D
Dr. Gameology on Twitch & The Gaming Persona Podcast
Owner of Area of Effect Counseling

The Gaming Persona explores the concept of Video Games and Well-Being. This week, we review a recent publication by Vuorre et al. (2022) which found no significant reduction in wellbeing due to gameplay patterns. Dr. Gameology talks with Jenny and Gene to uncover what it is about video games that works for their week, and what they pay attention to so they can stay on the right path.

Listen to the Podcast Here:

Gaming Library:
Persona 5, Persona 3 Portable, Final Fantasy XIV Online, Star Wars: The Old Republic, Spiritfarer, Journey, Danganronpa , Candy Crush, World of Warcraft, Kingdom Hearts, Resident Evil, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time


 

What are we talking about from the world of video games?

We are going to talk about a new study that came out that concluded games do not reduce well-being.

So that means games do improve well-being?

I do not know. We will get into it.

Let us get philosophical. So, it does not make it worse?

Yes.

 

The Ordinary World

 

All right. Well, I guess we will have to go with that and take it into our Ordinary World where we share everyday life through our games. Gene, what was your week like in the world of gaming?

Well, I did not have a whole lot of time for gaming, specifically, but I did “gaming adjacent” activities. I did go to a con. That was my whole weekend. And so that, well, one thing of note at this con was a panel talking about the philosophy behind the Persona series, which you know, is right up our alley. But well, I mean, I would not say it is incorrect, but it was very Persona 5 centric. So, their philosophy story gets worse the more of the games you incorporate. But it was very good for Persona 5. But they offered an alternative to well, the whole lessons behind Jungian psychology as the backbone.

Oh, that is good. Yes, it is the backbone of the series. And one of the things I think is really interesting about these kinds of conversations with Persona is ours really felt Persona 3 heavy, which I have not even finished that one. So, it is pretty easy these days to focus on the Phantom Thieves, because they are a very trendy group of teenagers.

Yep. Yes, and well, on that topic. You know, a recent survey done by Atlas. voted in that part, a remake of Persona 3 is the clear winner of what they want, what they want the company to do. So that was swinging things back into the other direction.

One of the things I hear all the time about Persona 3 is most people that I talked to, at least will say that is their favorite Persona game, story and character wise, but it is not fun to play because it’s lacking all of the nice quality of life things you get when your game is a ps4 game as opposed to a PS2 game.

Right. Well once you skip ahead, I guess into Persona 3 Portable you do have a lot of those nice features. But you do lose some lose some of the positives that the PS2 games had because they altered the game a bit.

How was the con?

Oh, it was fine. It was not the first time I have been to this one. It is the Tampa Bay Comic Con. It is small. Whoever organized this con, they put clearly all the budget into getting as many celebrities and vendors in as possible. So, you could spend a ton of time in the vendor room. And then you can spend as much time as you want with these celebrities. But then, if you are looking for panels and shows, there is a small offering.

Oh, that is so sad.

Well, if we ever want to go over to Tampa, we have content for them too.

So, Jenny, what was your week like in gaming?

Um, I actually got to play a little bit of Final Fantasy this week. It has been nice having a schedule playing every Thursday, with AIE and doing the little Sprout Raids. That was fun. It did not take very long. I honestly cannot remember which one it was. But it was it was pretty short. We had two full groups, though. There was a lot of people that showed up. It was pretty cool. And then after that, I did the third and final Nier Raid. Yes, I did Tower at Paradigm’s Reach, I think is what it is called. I died a lot. The mechanics were challenging. But it was exciting. There was a lot of really cool stuff going on. And a lot of creepy stuff, a lot of stuff that I have seen you do many times that it is really exciting to be doing now. So, I do not think I won any gear. That was exciting. But it was a good experience overall.

Yes. So now you just need to do it about fifteen times a day, so that you remember all the bosses like the back of your hand. And then you can waltz through there like it is a symphony, and you are the maestro.

Nice. I look forward to it. The only other thing I wanted to talk about, I do not know if we should talk about this now in the ordinary world or what. But we have gotten a couple new reviews.

You can read the first one, Jenny, I think that would be great to share with our audience.

Okay, so the first one was written about a month and a half ago. And it is titled “My New Favorite Podcast.” That is kind of exciting.

Wow!

I know we are someone’s favorite. Yes, so they said, “Truly a gem of a show the chemistry of the hosts and the topics of mental health, told with the parallels of gaming make this a fun experience to listen to you. So glad I found this show. And thank you for the podcast.” So, thank you very much for writing that. If you are listening.

I am sure eventually they will hear us read their words.

Unless we burned some bridges in the last week.

That cat episode! I am a dog person. Unsubscribe!

All right, well, I will read the second one: “They are informative and entertaining. The two hosts create a fun atmosphere. The topics are always related to real life application and not just focused on the gaming world. I also enjoy that they bring in research articles to support their topic.”

For my ordinary world, I did play Final Fantasy XIV. On Sunday, I played a little bit of Astrologian to heal. I got a level up on that class. Then we did Void Ark with Anime Girl – who jumped in using the world travel. So that was my first time grouping up with someone from a different server world. She had never done the Void Ark before that is the first Alliance Raid from the Heavensward expansion. So, it is a level 60 Alliance Raid. It was funny, because we got to some of the bosses and Jessica and Wes and some other AIE people that jumped in, were talking about how terrible it is when your whole raid wipes because they do not do the mechanics in these fights. So, then I opened my mouth, and I said, “I can say with 100% certainty, I’ve never full raid wiped on this boss.” So, what happened? That very pull we wiped, but it was not my fault. I got one-shot by a mechanic, which is my fault. But I was assured by the rest of the team that there were things that were very preventable – if you are a tank player – and that I should not have died there. So, it was a good experience, we did clear the Alliance Raid. And it was a lot of fun. I had three different Twitch streamers raid my channel. Two of them are people that I have raided with a ton in Star Wars: The Old Republic. So, thank you so much, Lorhin and MarcusB814. Also, a good friend from AIE, and from one of the episodes of our show, so it is really cool to connect with people in the little community we call Twitch. So, that was everything I did in video games, oh, I did also get to purchase Spiritfarer on Steam. It is a game where you play as a character named Stella, who takes over for rowing the boat across the river Stix to usher people into the afterlife. Since I am working so closely with mythology and video games, I did a lot of research into this game. It is really beautiful. It reminds me of the kind of beautiful game storytelling that we get from things like Journey, where the impact is emotional. It is not really an action adventure. It is about a message. Although there are places where you have to jump and complete things, and I am just really excited to get to play the game myself instead of just studying it like it is an academic topic. So, as I make progress on that, I will be sure to give the show my updates.

 

The Call to Adventure

 

So, let us answer the Call to Adventure where we get into our topic for the week. All right. Video games do not reduce our well-being. That is what we are talking about today. They do not make it better, necessarily, but they do not make it worse. So, I have a couple of questions that I want each of us to take the time to answer and then we will move on to more focused parts of this topic. So just to break the ice here, how have video games impacted our recent weeks? What do we think about video games and how they fit into our lives?

For me, video games really do not impact my week too much. If anything, it is just a little blip in my week that I got to relax and not edit for a couple of hours. There have been times in my life where that is not true. And they, you know, may have impacted my week a little more than they do now. But yes, lately it increases my well-being. I am not saying that happens across the board for everyone. But for me, it is a nice little self-care thing I have been doing.

Alright, Gene, what about you?

I would say it does not impact it a whole lot either. Like to me in my daily life, I guess I could compare it to the same concept of, say, watching a TV show, or something like that. Like me playing the game and my wife is watching or whatever. We are just sharing an interesting visual experience, the same as if we were watching a TV show together. So, it is not a significant impact. It is integrated into my existence.

That is a good way to put it. I would really just say the same thing about me. This could have gone in the previous segment. That idea of doing things together, that video games are a bonding agent inside the household. That is really what I have created as well for myself in my adult life. My family, actually, this weekend, spent a lot of time together in our living room, because we did the final three chapters of Danganronpa in two days. Awesome, right? For anyone who does not know what that means. Danganronpa has three “final” chapters. First off, there are six chapters. So that is half the game. But the trials all take at least 90 minutes to go through. The investigation to collect the clues for who committed the murders also seem to take about 90 minutes to two hours per thing, because there is so much voice acting in the game. I was not skipping things. So, we were actually watching it more like it is an interactive movie, where we control where the protagonist (whose name is Makoto) goes through the hallways to collect the evidence. The whole setup of the game is 15 Teenagers locked into a high school during a post apocalypse. The only way to escape the high school is to murder one of the other high schoolers and get away with it. And you have a trial to see if you got away with it. Except you are not the murderer. You are the good high schooler who is actually the best detective in the whole building. If you play the game, well, I suppose you could be the worst detective in the whole building. Also, depending on how much you struggle during those trials… so it was such a good game. I feel like a different person today because I finished Danganronpa. Yes, like we might have to have a whole Monokuma episode.

Yes, that is a great series. And yes, and Danganronpa 2, if you ever move on to that, it is just as good.

Oh, it is just as good? Well, I am going to have to start playing that within the next week or so then. We did not buy it immediately. Because we were not sure if people had a good opinion of it.

Part 2 is a little different. The twist is odd.

Oh, well I really enjoyed the twist of the story in this one. My wife actually made a comment to me last night, that, I really enjoy murder mystery things. Okay, and that is true. And another fun Dr. Gameology Trivia Fact: If I were not a counselor, I would have wanted to be a detective. I remember as a child being interested in that profession. I think the reason I ended up being a counselor is because there is more school on that path. I guess at that period of time in my life, where I had a choice of pursue things that are more related to crime solving or pursue things that are more related to clinical work, it just did not occur to me to “Not Go” get a degree in psychology. I really do not know how I completely forgot about detective stuff. But interesting alternate reality that I have been thinking about because I really do enjoy solving unknown things.

So, I have a whole slew of other murder mystery visual novels, to recommend you if you ever need them.

Wow, the endless number of games so that I cannot accomplish other things in life. All right, so we have some pros in our week from video games. Are there any times that we want to mention where video games have been a drawback? Or when we had to say, “Nope, games, not today”?

For me, the only time that has ever happened is I have talked about this a few times on the podcast. There was a time where I played Candy Crush many, many, many years ago. And that game really got me. I do not know what it was, but I was playing it too much. I ended up seeing Candy Crush pieces in the real world that were not there. It is like “Alright, guys, it’s time to stop.” So yes, that is it. I had the propensity for it to impact me negatively.

So, I guess I would say there was a brief period of time where World of Warcraft negatively impacted me. This was right after I graduated high school / before I left for college. I had a part-time job. Before I left, to go away to FSU I could have been working more hours earning more money. But instead, I would tell my manager “Oh, yes, on these days. I have to leave at x time because that was my raid time.”

Priorities!

Yes. So, I could have had a better financial situation if I had tried harder back then.

Jenny, do you know, all the times I have mentioned that I want to be Chaotic Good, but people tell me that my chaotic isn’t chaotic enough?

Yes.

What college did you go to?

Yes, as soon as he said that it was like, Oh, my goodness, University of Florida.

Florida State

My brand of chaotic good is my co-hosts came from Gainesville and Tallahassee! Take that AIE people that I will not name that said, I am not chaotic enough.

Somehow, I feel like that was coincidental.

I set out deliberately to get Gene to say “yes” to this so that we can have this moment.

This was a long plot in the making.

Wow. Many, many years in the making. For those who do not know what we are talking about, University of Florida and Florida State University are rivals. We do not get along.

 

Video Games and Well-Being: Moral alignment is used in video games to quickly establish characters and what they value. Are the good or evil? Do they follow, bend, or ignore the rules of the established order?

 

I mean, I feel like it is possible to get along. That is my never-ending quest to be therapeutic for people? I can have a tranquil, positive, mindfulness psychological podcast, even with a Seminole and a Gator.

Well, for me, I do play fewer games throughout my week when there are tough challenges, particularly academic ones. For example, I was not able to stream last night. I could have, but I chose to acknowledge that all of my energy was depleted by the time I got to the point where I could have started. So, if I did treat streaming video games like it was a job, I could have reported for that shift. But I chose not to treat it like a job and to treat it like it is something that should be fun and relaxing. But streaming is actually not easy. You need your mind to be ready to react to so many different things. I did not feel like I could do that. So really, I just think about my time as far as what fits, what does it take to do the things I am required to do that I am responsible for? And then what games will fit into my life? And how do I want to fit them? If that can work, then I do it. Although I will say that I totally had to play the opening of Kingdom Hearts today for about 45 minutes. I had to write about Destiny Island, and the entire dream sequence that serves as the tutorial. I could just watch a YouTube video of someone else playing it, which is an incredibly boring thing to do. Or I can just play it myself. So, I did choose to play it myself. But once I got to the part where they told me to collect mushrooms and coconuts, I was like, “I’m done.” So, in that situation, video games are not play and relaxing and fun, that it really was an academic task with a purpose behind why I needed to play that dream sequence. But I still think of video games that way. I mean, obviously, video games have an element of work responsibility for me at this point. So, this question I could talk about all day, but we have a show to do.

 

The Road of Trials

 

So, let us go on the Road of Trials, where we face our challenges and discover our strengths. So, what motivates us to play video games is really the question for this segment. I want to introduce again, the idea of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. We do not have to define it. We are going to go a little more in depth on those ideas once we add our research study into the discussion. I just want us all to be able to talk about some cool extrinsic things that video games offer? And then what is intrinsic about the way we play video games? So actually, does anybody want to explain what those two terms mean? Just so that it is in this episode?

Sure. I am going to describe it as best as I understand it, and then you can let me know if I forgot anything.

I implicitly endorse your definitions, even before I hear them.

Okay, so intrinsic motivation would be doing something because it makes you feel good, or because it is fun, or because it is something that is personally rewarding for you. Then extrinsic motivation would be doing something to get some sort of outside reward, whether that is doing something for money or approval. Also getting an award for or an achievement.

Absolutely. Intrinsic things happen inside of you, and extrinsic are given to you from outside of yourself. So where do we find our balance in the way that we play video games? That is really the big question for a road of trials today.

Intrinsic things occur inside. Extrinsic are given from outside ourselves. What do we receive when we play our games? Click To Tweet

Well, for me, I mean, I would say my gaming motivation is, I do not know, like 90% intrinsic. I play games to have weird experiences. I am not playing a Resident Evil game to have a vanilla struggle. I am going into it because I know Resident Evil gives you a certain flavor of nonsense. I could play any number of zombie shooting games, but Resident Evil has a certain style to it. So, when I play games, I am looking for that those flavors to surprise me.

 

Video Games and Well-Being: The enemies and environments in the Resident Evil series lend themselves to memorable moments and fun memories, if you can keep your composure.

 

Yeah, I would agree my motivation for gaming is pretty intrinsic I mean, everyone knows I am a social gamer, I play games so that I can spend time together with my friends. Also, so that I can have a little bit of downtime. A lot of weeks go by where I do not get to do that. There is no external thing that is motivating me to game. It is just my love of my friends and myself.

It is appropriate for me to admit that I quite possibly have the highest amount of extrinsic motivation. The way I play games, is, even the idea of “I want to do this on my stream channel” is a mixture of intrinsic and heavily extrinsic motivation. I would say that is primarily extrinsic is. I want that moment to be associated with me. I am collecting those moments. There is an intrinsic quality to that if we really dig deep, but even the idea of, “I want to experience this thing, so that I can write a better book chapter about it.” is extrinsic, because I want that book to sell well. I want it to appeal to people who play games in ways that are both similar to me, and dissimilar to me. I think that ultimately, the intrinsic purpose of me going on that whole journey to write about video games in this one particular way… I do not think that there is particularly an extrinsic motivation, like a dollar amount that I am doing it for. I think that when the book is done, I will feel remarkably similar to the way I felt when I defended my dissertation, or the first time I finished Journey. The first time I beat a savage raid boss at level, or when I beat Nightmare Brontës with some of my friends on the Satele Shan server. Those moments represent big accomplishments that are my gaming story. So, there is an intrinsic quality to having that story inside of me. There is also an extrinsic desire for me to share that story with other people and for them to think that it is a cool story.

 

Video Games and Well-Being: Reaching the final destination in a meaningful journey results in a wide range of emotions in the person who has experienced it from the beginning.

 

Yeah, I think for me, my biggest extrinsic motivation is playing something throughout the week so that I have something to talk about in the ordinary world on the podcast. I do not love to hear your disappointed voice when I do not.

Wait, does my voice noticeably change in a not funny way?

No, no, no, just like, it is a meme at this point. But I feel like at some point throughout our podcasts, there was a sound that you played when I did not play something and the sound that you played when I did.

Oh, yes, the Duty Failed for Final Fantasy XIV. They have a download folder that they give to content creators, and it has all kinds of sound effects that we are allowed to use. Yes. In one of our episodes…

The duty failed noise is my extrinsic motivation.

Yep. So, I am the extrinsic motivation police on this show. All right. Well, I am glad I can help the psychology work correctly.

 

The Ascent

 

Well, let us elevate the topic and experience the Ascent. So, we have from Royal Society Open Science publication a research study that just came out, and it is credited to the Vuorre et al. So, four authors on this one, and we have the Oxford Internet Institute and the Center for Psychiatry Research in Stockholm. Those are the two contributing places it looks like on this study as far as what I am looking at right now. They took a bunch of games and thousands of players, and their question is, “Does time spent playing video games have any impact on wellbeing?” So, they measured the gameplay patterns over a six-week period of time, where they introduced the participants to the study, measured their play over a two-week period, and then measured their ability to experience well-being in life following the play period of the study. They use the Scale of Positive and Negative Experiences (SPANE), and they used the Player Experience and Need Satisfaction scale (PENS). These are both seven-point Likert scales that go from “Very Rarely” or “Never” for unpleasant responses to “Very Often” or “Always” for pleasant responses. This measures the ability to have needs met, and for people to experience life in a positive way as a game player. All right, so that is what the study did. It had 38,935 players that responded to these instruments. They concluded a few different things, and since I have just explained the entire setup, what did they find?

Sure. Basically, they found that the experience of playing video games is pretty neutral to moving the well-being needle, so to speak. It did not really move in either direction, according to these “after game” questionnaires that were recorded.

Yes. The time spent playing did not impact the well-being scores. So, if a player has a well-being that is at that five, six or seven average on their Likert scale score, and they play for 90 hours in one week, 60 hours in one week, 35 hours in one week, 12 hours in one week… The amount of movement on their well-being score and need satisfaction score is not related to time spent. All right. So, this actually makes a lot of sense. In fact, I retweeted a picture yesterday, and that picture was a comic that I thought was a really incredible commentary on what video games are for people. It was about nostalgia, and that feeling we have about what life would be like if I could go back and play video games the way I did in my childhood? It was from @butajape. Their comic was about a man finding an N64 controller in an old box. He wishes “I wish I could go back to the days when I use this controller,” there is also a genie lamp in the old stuff.

I was about to say that.

So, Jenny, since you are looking at the picture, I want to turn it over to you and give you the opportunity to explain the rest of the comic. And just, you know, I am sure you have this. Guess why you think I am so amused by this comic.

 

Video Games and Well-Being: Our memories of playing games can focus on gameplay as well as situations.

 

I would guess it is because you are a therapist.

All right, well, let us see what happens after the time-travel hack.

 Okay. The first couple frames he is looking at a box of his old stuff. He has an N64 controller in one hand, a genie lamp in the other and he is like, “I was thinking to go back to these days.” And then all of a sudden, his wish is granted, and he is a little kid on the floor of his room. It looks like he has a little N64 in front of him, but in the background, you can hear his parents, and they are arguing. They are bickering back and forth, and it is getting pretty heated. Then it cuts to the kid under a blanket crying, and saying, “Ha-ha, yay (sobbing), Zelda,” trying to cope with what is going on in his house.

Yep. Now, I wish I did not have any real-life stories to share. But I do, because the hardest thing to handle being a clinician who wants to help kids have the best life they can, and also being a Geek Therapist, is that those arguing parents are the people who call me and tell me their kid is playing too many video games. When I start talking to them about the strategy of how to help them turn off the games and do other things, that requires parental involvement. When kids do not drive or have their own car, or have their own money to go do outside the house activities, and maybe even requires direct interaction, as in the parent would have to take an interest in what their child is interested in outside of games in order to clear a path for them to participate in those things. Video games really do become a babysitter of sorts. Once you buy the game, that babysitting is free. It removes a lot of responsibility from parents. Actually, my perception trying to help those kids improve is that the child (and to an extent, me as the counselor in this situation), are both in a “no-win” situation. No matter what we talk about during that session, the parents are not going to become organized. The best option will be the Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. Yay. I am feeling seriously much sadder now than I was five minutes ago.

Yes, it is a really sad comic.

Yes, but it is absolutely true. The smile that I got retweeting it yesterday was not a smile of happiness. It was a smile of “Thank God, someone just gave me the opportunity to acknowledge that this is truth.”

All right. Okay, so there is also another part of the study. We set it up earlier when we were talking about intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. The study found that intrinsic motivation positively affected people’s well-being an extrinsic motivation negatively affected people’s well-being.

Gene, what do you think about that? I want to gather my thoughts for a minute.

Okay. Sure. It might be a little obvious, but extrinsic motivation is, in many situations, it is you doing something expecting things from others. You go to your job expecting to get paid. You mow the lawn so that your parents or your spouse do not yell at you for having a crappy lawn. But if you are doing something just so that other people do not get on your case, it is an obligation, and obligations rarely make anyone feel positive about what they are doing.

Yes. When games turn into a job, and you feel obligated, it does not feel good. I know, we have had conversations about this, Daniel, in the past. But it is important to keep those intrinsic motivators alive. At least that is what I think. And make sure that we are playing because we want to play.

Yeah, I mean, there is, there is definitely a few extrinsic ones that are still potentially positive, like, you know, if you are a serious game competitor, right? The winning of awards and prize money is a great motivator.

And also, for streamers that this is their job.

Yes. Oh, someday. Okay, I have it. The people that I have talked to where I really do feel clinically, “it would be a great idea for us to change your gaming behavior,” I think every single one of them are pursuing an extrinsic motivation. I do not think anybody overplays a game for an intrinsic reason. I do not know if saying those as absolute statements is the right way to go about it, though. But my examples of trying to dominate leaderboards or complete a certain challenge so that you can unlock things before they become unavailable, those are extrinsic things. Those are rewards at the end of a pipeline of productivity, and the productivity is you accomplishing those things in the game. Whereas, if you are just playing because you want to have fun, or because the story enhances your connection with your own imagination, or because you are involved in some kind of self-expression art form thing that, win or lose, you enjoyed your time doing it. That is a lot healthier as a path to design your play around.

Yes, when I think back to an earlier segment, when I played Candy Crush, I was being extrinsically motivated in that, because I needed the next level and I needed to beat you know, get … I honestly do not even remember what they are. But my motivator was “I need to get higher,” I need to beat more things. I was not playing because of anything that I typically play video games for. So that is an interesting connection.

I also do not think that goals in video games are 100% one of those and zero percent the other. So, for example, I mentioned the time that I was able to defeat Brontës in the Dread Fortress on nightmare mode difficulty in Star Wars: The Old Republic. I was working on that boss for a long time with my main raid team. We got stuck somewhere in the fight where we just were not burning her down fast enough and we could not complete the fight without enrage happening. Meaning we were too slow. She receives her God powers and one-shots everybody. So, we lose. I actually was so pressured by the release of the new expansion coming out in four-weeks that I reached out to people I knew who had cleared the fight, and I asked them if they could arrange to take me through it. I asked them to watch my stream and let me know if there is anything I am doing that is wrong in the fight. They concluded that it was not my fault that we were running low. That if I were in a group where everyone else was ready to win the fight, we would win the fight. So, the challenge of beating her became extremely intrinsic to me. I wanted to be able to say that one of these raids, I was able to win on Nightmare difficulty. At the end of that, there is a mount that she drops that is pretty cool called the Wings of the Architect. They are four arms with rockets on the end that come out of your back, similar to Dr. Octopus in Spider Man. I won that mount by beating her. That is the only way to get that vehicle. That is an extrinsic reward for something that I feel was enough reward in itself that we won the fight. So that is the story that I chose to talk about how intrinsic things can sometimes carry extrinsic rewards as a bonus. Extrinsic things also can have a personal meaning to them after you accomplish them.

Our motivation for growth can come from extrinsic and intrinsic sources at the same time. These two experiences are not 100% independent from one another. Click To Tweet

So, I do not think it is black and white at all.

Well, we have to remember to mention that because I think one of the biggest struggles in our world is people assume categories were designed for black-and-white thinking. This whole motivation concept actually works the best if we learn how to notice that it is a very gray statement of what motivates us. Just like well-being, the video games not moving the needle, as Gene put it, it casts video games as an activity that you choose to do during your day. If your life is going well and you are satisfied with it, then you will play video games in a way that reflects that your life is going well, and you are satisfied with it. If those things are not true, you will play video games in a way that indicates that those things are not true.

Yes.

Yes, definitely agree with that.

 

The Return

 

Yes. So, let us go into returning go back to our daily lives. And take the next step forward. So, Jenny, and Gene, what important ideas can we take with us from our conversation today?

Okay, so I learned today that my motivation to play is intrinsic. Sometimes if those motivations swap over to an extrinsic, I do not know, honestly, I am still a little bit unclear about it, which is fine. I need to do a little more thinking about it, but the way that I play video games, and the way that I experienced joy while playing video games is typically intrinsic. For me, it is important for me to keep it on that wavelength so I can be happy.

All right today was the first time I had put into spoken words the idea that I play games to have weird experiences. Going back to my earlier Resident Evil example, I do not think there is any other game that really does this, but in Resident Evil, you have this bizarre situation where you use a hand crank, and it turns an entire frickin cave around. It does not even make any sense. Like the whole cave moves with you hand cranking, but that kind of weirdness has permeated that entire saga of Resident Evil. So, if I go into a Resident Evil game, and there is a weird crank, there’s nostalgia feelings, like “there’s gotta be something weird about this crank, and it’s going to be awesome.”

Turn the crank.

The thing that I will take with me is the idea of just reflecting on what is motivating me to do the things I do in games. I know that it may seem to other people like I talk about this a lot. In a way that is what our podcast is about. But I do also think that identifying which motivations are in the driver’s seat for me, and what will that allow me to get out of the experience of this game is really important, at least for me. So, I am really excited to find out that I do not really need to worry about my well-being, because games are not going to change that. It is just going to become itself a microcosm of how I am doing. At the same time, games are a window into seeing how I am doing because of that. So, my last quest for everyone to collect for today is get weird in your play and continue the journey.

See you next week.

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References

Vuorre, M., Johannes, N., Magnusson, K., Przybylski, A.K., 2022. Time spent playing video games is unlikely to impact well-being. Royal Society Open Science 9

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