Read on Twitter
Today @NiklasJohannes, @vuorre & I published our first pre-print which harnesses video games industry data to scientifically study player well-being. The purpose of this year-long effort was to determine ethical, legal, & practical feasibility. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54954622
It's a simple study but we found a few cool things, for example: Players tend to overestimate the amount of time they play, a pattern which is similar to what we see in smartphone/social media/news research.
We also found that objective (but not subjective) play time was consistently, *positively*, correlated with player well-being.
Our results also conceptually replicated a couple of decades of motivation research findings (ie SDT). Reports of in-game autonomy (volition) & relatedness (belonging) were positively correlated w. well-being, extrinsic motivation (playing b/c of pressure) was negative.
This is just a baby step, hopefully the first of many. Most importantly, we learned credible, ethical, & transparent research like this is doable.
Our preprint is under review, all data & code is available.
If you're interested please check it out! https://psyarxiv.com/qrjza/
Our preprint is under review, all data & code is available.
If you're interested please check it out! https://psyarxiv.com/qrjza/
