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Causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan 2020–2022
This study uses a natural experiment with game console lotteries to identify the causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan (2020–2022). Results show that video gaming reduced psychological distress and improved life satisfaction.
By identifying a unique and fitting situation and collecting relevant data in a timely manner, the study moves beyond the constraints of correlation analysis and controlled laboratory settings, offering a more authentic examination of the effect of playing video games on mental well-being in daily life. To this end, we applied a natural experimental study design to the original survey data containing information on video gaming activity and mental well-being indicators for individuals aged 10–69 in Japan, collected at various points between 2020 and 2022 during the COVID-19 pandemic. To assess the potential risk of violating the conditional unconfoundedness assumption due to this unobserved variable, we employed three strategies: (1) an imputation approach, (2) analyses of short-period subsamples and (3) the application of causal diagrams for consideration of covariates.
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