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Does Playing Apart Really Bring Us Together? Investigating the Link Between Perceived Loneliness and the Use of Video Games During a Period of Social Distancing
During the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries implemented social distancing measures to contain virus transmission. However, these vital safety measures have the potential to impair mental health or wellbeing, for instance, from increased perceived loneliness. Playing social video games may offer...
Autores principales: | , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8873111/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35222171 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.683842 |
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author | Nebel, Steve Ninaus, Manuel |
author_facet | Nebel, Steve Ninaus, Manuel |
author_sort | Nebel, Steve |
collection | PubMed |
description | During the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries implemented social distancing measures to contain virus transmission. However, these vital safety measures have the potential to impair mental health or wellbeing, for instance, from increased perceived loneliness. Playing social video games may offer a way to continue to socialize while adhering to social distancing measures. To examine this issue further, the present online survey investigated social gaming during the pandemic and its association to perceived loneliness within a German-speaking sample. Results indicated a small positive correlation between general gaming frequency and perceived loneliness. Detailed analysis revealed a negative association between perceived loneliness and increased social forms of video gaming. Specifically, gamers with a higher social motive for gaming perceived less loneliness, but gamers with a dominant escape motive demonstrated a positive link to perceived loneliness. The use of social gaming in times of social distancing seems to play a small but significant factor in perceived loneliness compared to other demographical data. The findings are discussed with respect to methodological limitations, effect sizes, and sample characteristics. The results enrich the current knowledge on video gaming and its link to social wellbeing and provide a more nuanced picture than simplistic investigations of screen time. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-8873111 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-88731112022-02-26 Does Playing Apart Really Bring Us Together? Investigating the Link Between Perceived Loneliness and the Use of Video Games During a Period of Social Distancing Nebel, Steve Ninaus, Manuel Front Psychol Psychology During the COVID-19 pandemic, several countries implemented social distancing measures to contain virus transmission. However, these vital safety measures have the potential to impair mental health or wellbeing, for instance, from increased perceived loneliness. Playing social video games may offer a way to continue to socialize while adhering to social distancing measures. To examine this issue further, the present online survey investigated social gaming during the pandemic and its association to perceived loneliness within a German-speaking sample. Results indicated a small positive correlation between general gaming frequency and perceived loneliness. Detailed analysis revealed a negative association between perceived loneliness and increased social forms of video gaming. Specifically, gamers with a higher social motive for gaming perceived less loneliness, but gamers with a dominant escape motive demonstrated a positive link to perceived loneliness. The use of social gaming in times of social distancing seems to play a small but significant factor in perceived loneliness compared to other demographical data. The findings are discussed with respect to methodological limitations, effect sizes, and sample characteristics. The results enrich the current knowledge on video gaming and its link to social wellbeing and provide a more nuanced picture than simplistic investigations of screen time. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-02-11 /pmc/articles/PMC8873111/ /pubmed/35222171 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.683842 Text en Copyright © 2022 Nebel and Ninaus. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Psychology Nebel, Steve Ninaus, Manuel Does Playing Apart Really Bring Us Together? Investigating the Link Between Perceived Loneliness and the Use of Video Games During a Period of Social Distancing |
title | Does Playing Apart Really Bring Us Together? Investigating the Link Between Perceived Loneliness and the Use of Video Games During a Period of Social Distancing |
title_full | Does Playing Apart Really Bring Us Together? Investigating the Link Between Perceived Loneliness and the Use of Video Games During a Period of Social Distancing |
title_fullStr | Does Playing Apart Really Bring Us Together? Investigating the Link Between Perceived Loneliness and the Use of Video Games During a Period of Social Distancing |
title_full_unstemmed | Does Playing Apart Really Bring Us Together? Investigating the Link Between Perceived Loneliness and the Use of Video Games During a Period of Social Distancing |
title_short | Does Playing Apart Really Bring Us Together? Investigating the Link Between Perceived Loneliness and the Use of Video Games During a Period of Social Distancing |
title_sort | does playing apart really bring us together? investigating the link between perceived loneliness and the use of video games during a period of social distancing |
topic | Psychology |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8873111/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35222171 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2022.683842 |
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