[Repost] Dissertation: Correlation between Gaming habits, relationships, and mental health. (19+, Canadian or USA resident, Comfortable with English, Plays Video-Games)

[u/Mechanical_Jack]

"Well here we are again..."

I wish I had managed to gather enough participants much sooner, but I am still in need of, I kid you not, no more than 15 new participants before the survey is closed and ready for data analysis.

As this subreddit has been the BEST source of excellent participants (and some late-night scrolling through excellent topics), I am posting here again, hoping it will see me through to the final step of my research.

As always, my name is Yuval Alter.
I am doing a study as part of my Doctorate Degree in Clinical Psychology in the PsyD Program at Adler University (Vancouver Campus). I have been playing video games all my life, which has inspired my research topic.

I am doing research on gamers’ playing habits, relationships, and mental health.

I would be very thankful if you could take part in my study. The research is voluntary, and you should only participate if you feel comfortable doing so.

You are eligible to participate if you:

• Are a resident of Canada or the USA
• Are at least 19-years-old
• Play video games at least 6 hours a week
• Are comfortable reading English

Your responses are anonymous. There will be no way to know which answers are yours.

If you meet the criteria above and are interested in participating in this study, click the link below!

If you want to know more, feel free to reach out to me at [yalter@adler.edu](mailto:yalter@adler.edu) or post in this thread.

Feel free to share this survey with friends, guild-mates, company members, or whoever meets the description above!
Many thanks from a fellow gamer!

Yuval Alter PsyD Program, Doctorate student
Adler University, Vancouver, Canada
Email: [yalter@adler.edu](mailto:yalter@adler.edu)

Link to the survey: https://adler.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_byJJcB5r4fclLSe

Abstract:

I can't give too much information about the study's aim, but it focuses most on relationships from the personal perspective of people who spend a substantial amount of time playing video games. While most research has focused on the measurable well-being of gamers' relationships, few have looked at gamers' personal reporting of relationship satisfaction. I aim to provide insights into this overlooked area.

Discussion Points:

• [NEW] Many participants pass the initial criteria for the study, but then get disqualified when asked about playing "4 hours a day, at least six times a week." When I made this question, I was using existing data, from not too many years ago, on average reports of time spent playing video games, expecting no more than 40% of participants to answer yes. To my surprise, far more than that have answered yes and been disqualified (which has made recruiting participants much harder). Is it possible that average play times have shifted so dramatically in the last few years? Or is it a sourcing error, as I am "fishing where the fish are?"
• There is a bias in research towards gaming and negative mental health outcomes. There are fewer articles about positive correlations.
• I myself struggled with social anxiety in my past, which inspired me to devote my dissertation to this topic. I wonder how many people who play video games experience something similar?
• The struggle of studying video games in academia.

I have a poster with a QR code, but I can't upload images. So apologies for the inconvenience!

[u/TheVioletBarry]

You have to play 4 hours of video games at least 6 days a week? That's wild... I fit every criteria other than that

[u/Mechanical_Jack → u/TheVioletBarry]

That means you're fit for the study. It's an exclusionary criterion. And I am getting a lot of people who play more than 4 hours a day, six days a week.

[u/StewMahagoni → u/Mechanical_Jack]

You forgot to mention that in your post.

[u/Mechanical_Jack → u/StewMahagoni]

This secondary criterion is actually intentionally inside the study, so that I can gather info on how many participants play more than 4 hours a day almost every day. It means they are not fit for the rest of my study, but it provides me info on how many people responded this way.

[u/StewMahagoni → u/Mechanical_Jack]

While I understand this, it still feels like wasting our time.

[u/TheVioletBarry → u/Mechanical_Jack]

But it said I wasn't fit for the study.

Edit: oh did you phone eat the 'not' in that sentence?

[u/Mechanical_Jack → u/TheVioletBarry]

Haha, I think we might be misunderstanding each other.
In the study, there is a question about playing 4 hours a day, six times a week. If you say yes, then that disqualifies you. When you said "you have to" I thought you understood it as something you need to meet to be qualified. I'm looking for people who don't meet that number of hours. Hope that made sense haha

[u/TheVioletBarry → u/Mechanical_Jack]

Oh, then I must have pressed the wrong thing, because I don't play 4 hours a day and I got disqualified. Or maybe it's one of the other criteria? 

Is it because I'm a game developer?

[u/GrinningPariah → u/TheVioletBarry]

Yep they mentioned elsewhere, that's also disqualifying.

[u/GrinningPariah]

Or is it a sourcing error, as I am "fishing where the fish are?"

You're 100% fishing where the fish are. Like to put this in context, /r/gaming is a casual, mainstream, news-focused general gaming subreddit. It has 3 million weekly viewers.

This is a subreddit with under 100,000 users, less than 3% of the users of the main sub. This is a place for people who want to have deep conversations about games and game mechanics. More to the point, it's necessarily a subreddit for people who wanted more of that than in /r/gaming. So by posting here you're filtering for real enthusiasts.

[u/Mechanical_Jack → u/GrinningPariah]

Yeah, that makes sense. This is where my thinking is at, too. When I write up my results, the limitations section will cover this issue.

[u/tiredstars → u/Mechanical_Jack]

Now I'm wondering just how long the typical truegaming reader does play games each day. For anyone in full-time work, 4+ hours, 6 days a week is practically all your free time for at least 4 of 5 weekdays.

I assume the people screened out skewed younger, so less likely to be working full-time. I wonder how representative that is of the sub as a whole.

[u/Mechanical_Jack → u/tiredstars]

That is 100% something I'm wondering about as well. 4+ hours almost every day when you have a job sounds impossible to me without sacrificing cooking, cleaning, and whatnot.

[u/tiredstars → u/Mechanical_Jack]

without sacrificing cooking, cleaning, and whatnot.

I mean, I don't want to stereotype gamers but...

[u/GrinningPariah → u/Mechanical_Jack]

I dunno, 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of work, that leaves 8 for whatever. Say you spend an hour commuting, an hour making food, and another hour just in between tasks, getting dressed, getting ready for bed, whatever, that still leaves 5 hours of gaming.

Hell, you could work out for an hour and still hit that 4 hour mark.

[u/GrinningPariah → u/Mechanical_Jack]

It's funny, that rule doesn't even apply to me, because I'm already disqualified for being a game developer.

But, that said, I bet that TrueGaming also has a much higher percentage of working game devs than /r/gaming. After all, talking about game design is shop talk for us.

And while there are a lot of places for game devs to talk about game design with other game devs, this is one of the few places that discussion is happening with the general public too, which makes it useful in a different way.

[u/ParkerPathWalker]

Hey man, I played the shit out of balatro, thanks for the recommendation.