Online Gaming and Mental Health: Testing the Goldilocks Hypothesis in Australian Youth

Abstract

Online video gaming (OG) is a highly popular activity, especially among adolescent males. Excessive OG can involve addiction-related clinical presentations, while lower-frequency gaming appears to support mental health. However, publication biases favour harm-centred accounts of OG, and benefits are frequently overlooked. The current study tested the ‘goldilocks hypothesis’ that light OG (0-2h/day) is protective while excessive OG (>4h/day) is harmful compared to non-gaming. Australian high-school students (N = 52,628) responded to a survey assessing demographics, mental health symptoms, disengaged coping, OG, and various social items which yielded factors representing family support, friend support, and sociability using principal components analysis. The main multinomial logistic regression model controlled for gender and psychosocial predictors, and male and female samples were also analysed separately. Overall, excessive and moderate OG predicted increased mental health risk while light OG showed no effect. However, in males, excessive OG predicted increased mental health risk whereas light OG was protective. In females, excessive and moderate (2-4h/day) OG predicted increased mental health risk whereas light OG showed no effect. Results supported the goldilocks hypothesis for males but not females, suggesting that light OG may improve male mental health, but not effect females. Lower disengaged coping, male gender, and higher family and friend supports were protective, while sociability and socio-economic status produced mixed effects. The current study outlines key implications for family and treatment settings, suggests that biopsychosocial factors may reflect greater importance for mental health than OG itself, and urges future research to acknowledge the beneficial potential of OG.