Video games, despite their often-maligned pastime, do appear to increase well-being, according to a study that took advantage of a unique situation at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.

“I think if you enjoy your hobby, it will have a positive effect on your well-being,” says Hiroyuki Egami of Nihon University in Japan.

In 2019, the World Health Organization added “gaming disorder” to its International Classification of Diseases. However, research into the effects of video games has produced mixed results, with many studies unable to prove cause and effect in terms of mental health. Studies that aim to do this usually take place in the controlled environment of a laboratory, but these are “far from what it’s actually like to play video games,” says Peter Etchells of Bath Spa University in the UK, who was not involved in the recent study.

But between 2020 and 2022, Egami and his colleagues had a rare opportunity to study the causal effects of video games on a person’s well-being in the real world. Consoles were in short supply at the time, so parts of Japan introduced lotteries where people could enter a drawing to receive either a PlayStation 5 or a Nintendo Switch game console.

The researchers surveyed 8,192 people between the ages of 10 and 69 who had participated in one of these lotteries. Respondents answered questions about their gambling habits and their level of psychological distress, an indicator of psychological well-being.

Egami and his colleagues found that lottery winners had slightly better mental well-being scores than unsuccessful players. However, these scores plateaued after a total of about three hours of playing time per day.

They also used a machine learning model to break down the data, showing that the effect varied by console and owner demographic. For example, younger people with a Nintendo Switch were able to get more benefit from it than their older counterparts. The team also found that people without children got more benefit from a PlayStation 5 than those who are already parents.

“It shows that if we want to understand the impact that video games have on us, we need to be nuanced and specific about what we measure and how,” says Etchells. However, participants self-reported their gaming times, which may not be accurate, he says.

Both Ethcells and Egami also point out that the data was collected at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, which may have impacted people’s video game habits and well-being. Further studies using this method could show whether the trend holds in other contexts.