Video games have a bad reputation: they are accused of ruining teenagers’ sleep, damaging their brains, harming their school results, lowering their vision, making them violent and irritable…
But video games aren’t just bad for teens – luckily! A recent study conducted by University College London (in the United Kingdom) has just shown that boys who play regularly are less likely to develop depression in adolescence.
To reach this conclusion, the British researchers followed 11,341 boys and girls initially aged 11 between 2000 and 2002. Result? The researchers found that boys who played video games every day (or almost every day) had about a 24% lower risk of developing depressive symptoms around age 14, compared to boys who played less than once a month.
Video games + sport = prevention of depression in adolescents
However, scientists put a damper on this conclusion: physical inactivity (that is to say, the fact of sitting for long hours every day) is a major risk factor for depressive illness. This beneficial impact of video games on mental health does not work in the absence of daily physical activity…
And the girls ? The researchers did not observe the same results in girls. In contrast, they found that teenage girls who used social media daily had an increased risk of depression (by about 13%) at age 14 compared to girls who only visited Facebook or Twitter. once a month.
“Further work will be needed to fully understand the impact of screens and the internet on the mental health of young peopleconclude the researchers who published their research in the specialized journal Psychological Medicine. However, it does not seem relevant to us to completely cut adolescents off from screens because certain practices (video games for boys, for example) can prove to be beneficial.“
Read also :
- Is there a link between obesity and video games?
- Teenagers who play video games have as many friends as everyone else
- Addiction to video games recognized by the WHO
