The Impact of Video Games on the Emotional State of Gamers: Review of Modern Research

The article presents a theoretical review of modern research dedicated to the problem of the influence of video games on the emotional state of players. Despite the large number of works in this area, their results are quite contradictory, therefore, an analysis of meta-analytical data is necessary, as well as a detailed consideration of various factors influencing the effect. It has been shown that there is evidence for negative effects of video games on various indicators of emotional state, evidence for positive effects and evidence for the absence of effects. The effect depends on various additional factors — individual personality traits of the player, the genre of the game, the amount of time spent playing video games, and many others. It is revealed that in some cases, contradictions in the results of empirical studies are explained by the influence of these factors, in particular, the genre of the game has a significant impact, as well as the presence of video game addiction. We also reviewed meta-analytical works that confirmed the positive effect of educational video games on the development of emotional self-regulation skills, therapy for symptoms of autism and depression. Formulating reliable clear conclusions about the presence and magnitude of the effect of entertainment genres of games is still difficult due to the lack of modern meta-analyses.

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