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jp_sc | 4 years ago

If you have time to play video games, you probably have time to sleep well and exercise... which is proved to be positively correlated with well-being

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kube-system|4 years ago

I'm curious as to whether these are actually correlated. I anecdotally doubt that video game players exercise at a higher rate than non players.

Alternatively, I would guess that just generally having free time to spend in any way is a healthy thing. We already know that stress is correlated with worse outcomes. The study does mention that income could be a third causal variable, I think stress is probably a similarly correlated factor.

dragontamer|4 years ago

You might be surprised. Take a look at Fly (DOTA professional gamer) for example:

https://www.gosugamers.net/dota2/news/47182-fly-and-s4-out-o...

Turns out that a healthy body is correlated with reflexes. You need a level of workout activity if you want to be a professional-level video game player.

The "fat and lazy" trope kinda-sorta works for maybe casual games. But a fit body means a fit mind, and a fit mind plays games at a higher level.

SavantIdiot|4 years ago

At the height of WoW, most of my guild was raiding from 10PM to 3AM every single day, after solo play starting at 5 or 6 PM. And these were parents in their 30's/40's that would put the kids to sleep and game. And then go to work after 5 hours of sleep. The ones I knew in person were fat to obese and did not at all exercise because that would take away from grinding Molten Core or Nef.

brailsafe|4 years ago

It was/is(maybe) a particularly intense brain magnet.

ericmcer|4 years ago

There is a certain difficult to quantify benefit to video games vs sleep and exercise though. I have done 4-6 week stints of extreme discipline with a strict keto diet, 6X a week gym and no video games. I usually end up a little depressed after a few weeks. I think it is because we need to feel some enthusiasm or emotion in our day to day life, and if you combine a 40hr work week with disciplined free time you are just void of that. Video games and Movies allow you to feel a high level of engagement and escape in a 2 hour window. There aren't too many other activities that generate that feeling and can be slotted into the constrained time windows that working full time allow.

rubidium|4 years ago

Essential needs: fun, Freedom, friendship, power and purpose.

Different people have them in different amounts and ways. But everyone has these.

falcolas|4 years ago

You could say this about any leisure time activity, from interacting with friends to watching TV to reading books.

Leisure time is not a bad thing, as the title says.

jbluepolarbear|4 years ago

You get 1-2 hours a night from 8-10pm what do you do? Exercise wakes me up so I don’t want to do that before I sleep and it’s too early to sleep. So I can watch tv, play video games, or work on my personal projects. The rest of the day is work, kids, cooking, and cleaning.

ronaldj|4 years ago

As the partner of someone who is addicted to a computer game this is 100% not true. The game takes over any non-working hours and eats in to sleep time.

armchairhacker|4 years ago

also from personal experience, I find video games a lot more enjoyable when i have good mental health. When I’m depressed or anxious or numb video games don’t feel rewarding at all, they actually feel like work.

rsiwerz|4 years ago

One need not exclude the other. You can do both;)

Footkerchief|4 years ago

The point is that the correlation probably points to an underlying variable (e.g. leisure time) instead of direct causation.

0xdeadb00f|4 years ago

Came here to comment this. Further, people with time and the resources (PCs, consoles) are probably more limely to be financially stable. This means (in countries w/o universal healthcare) they can afford Dr. visits, oral, optical, etc making them better off in general.

mc32|4 years ago

I don’t know. Back when I was younger and friends were younger and we had few responsibilities, gaming cut into regular sleep hours and know that we tended to do fewer outdoor activities.

Maybe the gaming landscape has changed a lot, but it would surprise me.

brailsafe|4 years ago

Ya, but if all you do is sleep, exercise, and work, you're kind of dull. If you have time to do anything but work and look after kids, you should spend some on exercise, and some on something that brings your life flavour

watwut|4 years ago

I dunno ... I have seen multiple people skip sleep and exercise so that they can play. And then everybody else had to deal with sleep deprived cranky them.