Gaming and psychological health in adolescents in Sweden

Gaming is a widespread activity among young people.

Such an activity can be problematic and pose a risk to young people´s mental health, including increase of aggression, depression, or other emotional problems.

Problems with gaming are emphasized in both research and through the World Health Organization´s diagnosis, gaming disorder. Such a diagnosis captures the excessive and problematic gaming which poses risk for the personal psychological health.

Why some young people develop problematic gaming and how young people´s gaming relates to changes in their mental health, is still unclear. The purpose of the study is to gain in-depth knowledge about the links between gaming and mental health.

Through access to reports from both youth and their parents, longitudinal analyses and analyses of day-to-day variations in young people´s everyday lives, we will investigate the associations between gaming and mental illness.

Adolescent individual characteristics (e.g., gender, disability, personality) and social factors (e.g., parents, friends), will be examined as possible explanatory mechanisms for associations and interplay between gaming and mental health problems.The study will contribute with increased knowledge about explanatory models of gaming and potential consequences of gaming on mental health.

Such knowledge could be used in terms of development of methods for reducing mental problems in young people.