Video Games

Can Mario fight burnout? New research indicates that the childlike wonder found in Nintendo games helps young adults manage emotional exhaustion.

Esports players can improve shooting performance by training with real-time biological data. Researchers found that focusing on cortical activity and gaze control significantly reduced reaction times .

Engaging in creative activities like music, drawing, dance, or strategy video games may help keep the brain younger, according to a new study in Nature Communications. The research suggests creativity is linked to healthier brain function.

Research analyzing 140,000 hours of Nintendo Switch gameplay found no evidence that time spent playing predicts well-being. A player’s perception of how gaming fits their life was a more significant factor.

Do gamers really differ from non-gamers in their psychological makeup? A new study suggests they don’t. Researchers found few meaningful differences in personality traits, emotional regulation, or defense mechanisms, complicating popular assumptions about the mental health of gamers.

A comprehensive review of studies on pandemic-era gaming finds that while people played more, the increase was modest and unrelated to mental health outcomes. The findings raise questions about whether concerns over gaming during lockdown were overstated or misdirected.

Children who played the Cucca Curiosa game showed improvements in working memory, cognitive flexibility, and math. The findings suggest that digital interventions designed to strengthen executive functioning may also indirectly support academic skills like arithmetic and problem-solving.

Playing A Plague Tale: Requiem helped participants recover from stress on a biological level, regardless of violent or non-violent gameplay. But those playing violent passages felt more stressed and aggressive, highlighting a disconnect between felt and physiological stress responses.

Experienced FPS players showed faster aiming execution and more efficient eye movement patterns, especially a single-saccade strategy, compared to non-players. Their advantage persisted across different distances and timing conditions, suggesting enhanced visual-motor coordination under pressure.

A large international study has uncovered four psychological profiles of video game players, each shaped by emotional regulation, attachment style, and mental health. The findings offer new insight into which gamers are most at risk for problematic use.

Researchers exploring digital game use in boys found patterns linking specific games to different social traits. Fortnite and Clash of Clans were associated with stronger peer relationships, while Mortal Kombat was tied to more aggression.

A new study finds that a therapeutic video game, AKL-T01, improved task-switching and processing speed in people with post-COVID cognitive deficits. While sustained attention did not improve, participants reported better quality of life and reduced fatigue after six weeks of...

A study combining brain scans and gameplay data reveals that players with more efficient visual attention and stronger white matter connections excel at StarCraft II. The results highlight how neural traits shape success in cognitively demanding video games.

Despite similar gaming hours, high-risk gamers exhibit distinct attentional biases towards game images, unlike esports players. Published in Computers in Human Behavior, the study suggests eye movements differentiate these groups better than time played alone.

A simple video game task eased trauma-related symptoms in healthcare workers, offering a potential tool for frontline mental health support.