Look beyond the screen: the impact of video games on online and offline social functioning and wellbeing

Introduction
Video gaming is becoming more popular, with an estimated 3 billion gamers worldwide (Clement, 2022), and thanks to cloud gaming, video gaming is even more accessible than ever before. However, as digital devices are becoming more omnipresent, and as they become more of a replacement for face-to-face interactions (Harley, 2022), we must consider how video games impact wellbeing and social functioning. It is especially paramount to consider global wellbeing, as most of research on this matter appears to have focused on psychological wellbeing only, discounting external influences on wellbeing like social circles, employment or finances.

Impacts on wellbeing
Past literature shows that gaming has an overall positive impact on wellbeing outcomes. In studies of neurotypical players, video gaming brought about positive effects on cognitive stimulation, emotional regulation and quality of life (Barr & Copeland-Stewart, 2021; Zhao, 2022). Negative impacts revolve around the issues of increased aggression (Olejarnik and Romano, 2023) and decreased offline social capital (Tushya et al., 2023).

Impacts on social functioning
With regard to social functioning, gaming is an instrument that allows for social interactions. This has brought about positive effects for neurotypical players (Zhao, 2022), where they report socialising as one of the motivations for gameplay (Johnson et al., 2013). The positive impacts might be only observable if online interactions do not replace offline interactions (Harley, 2022).

The gap: what is there to find out?
However, there are issues with our current understanding of video game impacts on social functioning and wellbeing. Recent studies were conducted during the coronavirus pandemic when engagement with video games was the highest and beyond pre-pandemic levels. There are no investigations into the different behaviours in the online and offline spheres. Finally, no investigations considered the differential impacts on autistic and neurotypical players. In line with the following gaps, we formed research questions that we want to tackle:

RQ1: What impact does long-term video gameplay have on wellbeing?

RQ2: What impact does long-term video gameplay have on offline and online social functioning?

RQ3: What recommendations and interventions can be offered to promote the positive impacts and target the negative impacts of video games?

The plan: how do we answer these questions?
To answer the above research questions, we devised a four-stage plan for the PhD thesis:

Stage 1: Systematic review of literature on the impact of video games on social functioning and wellbeing, devising a theoretical framework of video game impacts on wellbeing

Stage 2: Construction and validation of a global wellbeing questionnaire

Stage 3: Analysis of longitudinal gameplay behaviours, wellbeing and socialisation data using quantitative data from surveys

Stage 4: In-vivo behavioural experiments: mixed reality social interaction