The Dark Matter of Gaming: Attitudes & Wellbeing Part 2 (Episode 277)

Sometimes the things shaping how we feel about our hobby are the things we can't see.

In Part 1, we dug into Oxford research showing that when it comes to gaming and mental health, the hours matter far less than whether the time felt worthwhile. This week, we pick the thread back up and follow it somewhere unexpected.

Matt offers a striking metaphor borrowed from physics: dark matter made visible because of how it pulls on everything around it. The way we feel about our gaming and the way others react is shaped by forces we can't always name. 120 hours in game is badge of honour in some circles and a dirty secret in others.

We touch on how gaming can be a refuge during stressful moments, family card games can reaffirm sibling bonds, and finding your tribe, or tribes. We finish up with another study from the Oxford Internet Institute, which maps out 13 distinct mechanisms through which gaming can affect mental health. Finally the conversation might begin to move past "how much" and toward "how, why, and for whom."

Listen to Part 1: [link to Part 1]

Further reading: "13 ways gaming affects your mental health – for better and worse" — Oxford Internet Institute https://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/news-events/13-ways-gaming-affects-your-mental-health-for-better-and-worse/

#GamingAndMentalHealth #GamingWellbeing #MentalHealthInGaming #OxfordInternetInstitute #GamingResearch #GamingAsRefuge #FindYourTribe #PlayMatters

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Transcript

matt 0:00

That has changed my life and my perspective on life so much you can have a rich and vibrant, thriving life. Just gaming. And that I would rather have that than the arbitrary Trappings of patriarchy in society, and is tremendously freeing and tremendously comforting.

Jem 0:33

they don't need to be into gaming. They just need to be respectful of the fact that I'm into gaming and that, that I view it as a valuable and valid way of spending my time.

Alex 0:48

I know that I'm gonna get a positive reaction if I say I've put 120 hours into this game from the gaming community. And if I said that to someone who's a non gamer, I'd feel like I'd get a very different reaction. You don't have someone being, oh, I spent 90 hours baking in the last month. You don't hear that kind of thing.

Speaker 1:27

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of Gaming the System, the podcast where three intersectional feminists examine gaming and games through a feminist lens. I'm your host for today. I'm Jem, and I'm here with my friends Alex and Matt. So before we get started, if you want to support us, you can subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/gamingthesystem for some exclusive content, or you can send a fo- us a one-off donation via PayPal to our email address, wearegamingthesystem@gmail.com

Jem 2:10

we are continuing our conversation about some research from Oxford, which has found that when it comes to gaming and mental health, it's not how long you play that matters. It's whether you feel that the time that you spent playing is worthwhile. We talked about whether that rang true for, the GTS team, and I think we decided that. Yes. but it's a lot more complicated than that and there is a quite a lot at play as to why we feel the way we do about our gaming experience. We really got into the meat of the topic. So I just want so try and pick up where we left off, and ask you, if you've ever turned to gaming as, a way to deal with challenges in your life and whether you feel that that's a positive or. A negative experience

Alex 3:14

I'll say yes, definitely. it's funny, I was talking about pressure in the last episode and thinking on it now when you frame that question, I tend to view gaming as a great, pressure reliever, but no, I think generally if I'm feeling like I need to. Have a space to escape. talked a lot about how gaming is great for escapism on the pod. but also it gives me a sense of control that I wouldn't get from watching a movie or, reading a book, for example, because gaming is more active. I can be in control of where I take. Myself and then also how much I engage with it. What I choose to do, what missions I choose to do. For example, if it's an open world game or, the genre of game that I choose to play, I'm the one in control of doing and that also helps me to feel a little bit more solid, if I'm feeling less than solid at the particular time that I've chosen to game. It really does depend on my mood, but I think there's a game out there that is a tonic for every mood so I think in that way it can be very beneficial.

Jem 4:30

There's never been a time where it's been a negative thing. I think it's always been a positive. For me to use it as a way to deal with difficult things. I'll give a really recent example. Yesterday when, the, president of, the United States of America was threatening all sorts of war crimes against the people of Iran. And, you know, for a few hours yesterday it felt really, really scary. We didn't know what might happen and it was so helpful for me to be able to. Step into Enshrouded with Daniel and just, you know, go and, I mean, we actually did like a really annoying dungeon and we kept dying and we kept falling down deep holes and, you know, really stupid deaths that were just really frustrating. And by the end of it was like, I don't even wanna play this anymore because it was so annoying, but it gave me. A few hours of complete respite from all this scary stuff that was happening in the world. I think that was a positive because the alternative was that I was just going to doom scroll and wind myself up even more about something that I have. Absolutely no ability to impact or control. So for me, that's the sort of situation where it's been really, really positive for me to kind of just step out of the real world and into something that is either, a way for you to kind of get stress out of your system, or it's a way to just switch off the monkey brain and, you know, just go into the game world and just deal with the puzzles or the difficult battles or which keys you need to press.

Alex 6:21

It's just been Easter weekend and I went home to spend time with family over that weekend, and we played a couple of. Different card games together. It was really nice to play with family.'Cause it just reminded me also of the social aspect of gaming and how that can be really or, stressed where because sister, other, off even we, we don't even have to say anything. We can just look at each other and we'll start laughing until our tummy hurt. Such a nice thing to be able to think, oh, this is what it's like when I play with, sister.'cause I haven't done that in a while. So it was just really nice. I just wanted to share that as another example of, how it can be a really good thing in our lives.

Jem 7:14

It's so nice. That's such a nice thing because, you know, as Matt was saying these sort of outdated ideas of gaming tend to be quite negative about social interaction. But both of you have over the last two episodes have shared these lovely stories of, gaming being a way to. Bring families together and spend that social time. What are your thoughts on this, Matt?

matt 7:39

Yeah, gaming, just been there at every single period of extremes in my life, and it has just carried me through them. Not carried me, but held me through them. Gaming isn't a solution. It's, it's not meant to be a solution to things. It's a game to play. It's either going to be neutral or positive regardless of the situation. And yeah, hard to put into words profound that gaming have and the relationship I have with it. And how it has never let me down. Not once when I've returned to it, it has never let me down to be what I need from it at that time.

Jem 8:52

because gaming is such a, a fundamental part of your life, have you ever had any times when people who don't know you well enough or to appreciate what that actually means, criticize the, the amount you game or have people around you always been positive about it? I mean, have, do you feel like you've had to justify your gaming to people at all?

matt 9:18

No, always been, it's always been fine, And as I've gotten older, I'd rather have fewer people around me and game the way I want to then have more people and game differently depending on. What those people may, think. And it's still only extremely recently that I'm feeling more comfortable and confident seeking out people and what is what is possible. And that has all been done because my my gaming that I ate my. My horizons are broadening. I work on that and find those opportunities, because of, gaming, not in spite of it. And I think that's a, that's that's another. Critical message is that gaming can add to your life. It can, you can build incredible things through gaming. It's not just about spending your time doing an activity. It's about a proper soul, soul to soul thing that it gives you

Jem 10:42

on that topic of sort of judgment, do you think that certain groups get judged more or less for gaming, or do you think it's more to do with societal attitudes in general to gaming?

matt 11:00

I've been, have either of you heard of the Kurtz? Kurtz K, YouTube channel It's like a science.

Alex 11:09

Yeah,

matt 11:10

of a sciencey thing. and they do these wonderful 10 minute about the, the cosmos and all the terrifying things about it. And, So one thing they mention all the time is dark matter, scientists have no idea what it is or how it works. They've never been able to see it in the universe, but they can see the impact that it has. So they know it exists. I think that the dark matter of society is patriarchy and capitalism. And what, studies like this can do is to go, right. We can see that that star is moving around it like that, but then that black hole is over there doing this thing. What are the differences between these two things when they need to be looking at what is dark matter doing? Around them. And how is that shaping those things? Because the idea of what is happiness and what is fulfillment and. That's where all these old pressures can come from. It's going, oh, are you, are you a woman? Are you of a certain age? Are you married or do you have kids? Are you married with one kid? You married with two kids? That's what the dark matter is, this person games a lot here. They're divorced and have four kids someone who's the exact, the same games and has divorced and has four kids, those kids are different ages or they, they have an amicable divorce. They could have a contentious one, they could be of remarried. They could have been literally the entire gamut of human experiences and. The impact of capitalism and patriarchy just contorts our perception of ourselves and of reality so hard that it a tremendous amount of work to unlearn those things into two. Reflect on the actual nature of of life, which is there are things that you need to do, things that you don't need to do, and then the things that you don't need to do, you can feel like you should do. Then you shouldn't do that. And if you split things down to, there are things you need to do and things that you want to do, and if you don't need to do them and you don't want to do them, then you shouldn't do them. And that sounds really simple, but it is that unlearning that. That pressure of going, oh, I may, I may love my gaming experience, but then I wouldn't want to tell anyone about it. I would be ashamed if I told certain people about it the Angry Joe show has massively changed my life recently because, one of the three of them is called Alex, and I've mentioned him a couple of times on the podcast now. He's six foot five and he's like hench, which goes to the gym. Really muscular, really tall, great head of hair. And everyone who's sees him will instantly judge him as, oh, he's not a real gamer. He doesn't look like a gamer. He doesn't behave like a gamer. And he'll go, I'm a level two magic the Gathering judge. I've won thousands of dollars. Winning magic the gathering tournaments. Look at my ring binders full of laminated Magic the Gathering cards and he plays more games than everyone else on the team combined. He plays Magic Gathering, which is probably the nerdiest game that's ever existed, he's a former professional chef and he, Just cooks and eats so much, and he goes to the gym. He games more than probably the three of us combined as well. He plays card games with his friends. His entire job is playing video games with his friends. I asked him, he, he's awake from 7:00 AM to 10 30. So he packs in more gaming than I do more, than than I could ever dream of. He packs all that in, I look at him and go, if I do a fraction of that, I would be happy doing that. So I can look at him and go, I can have a, full, wonderful, thriving life. That is a possibility because I can see him doing it and. That has changed my life and my perspective on life so much you can have a rich and vibrant, thriving life. Just gaming. And that I would rather have that than the arbitrary Trappings of patriarchy in society, and is tremendously freeing and tremendously comforting.

Alex 16:38

It's a curious thing. I was thinking, about a kind of quirk of the gaming community and the way that we talk about gaming within our community compared to outside of our community. like to boast about how many hours we've done things for. Which is funny when you think about the topic for today.'cause it's like, you know, I wouldn't really talk about gaming in the same way to a non gamer than I would to someone who I know is a gamer. So, like I know that I'm gonna get a positive reaction if I say I've put 120 hours into this game from the gaming community. And if I said that to someone who's a non gamer, I'd feel like I'd get a very different reaction. But it's kind of an odd quirk of our hobby, of our. Past time.'cause when you think about it from other perspectives, it's like you don't have someone being, oh, like, oh, I spent 90 hours baking in the last month. You don't hear that kind of thing. So if I was speaking about gaming to a non gamer, I'd say,'cause often people who aren't gamers will ask me what kinds of games I'm into, but they won't really understand the answer. I think they're usually just asking out of politeness. So I tend to sort of give a stilted version because I know I'm talking to someone who is a gamer. Then I can then go into more detail about it and kind of let more of that side of myself out. So it's not necessarily that. I suppose I feel judged. It's more that I know that I'm going to get a more well-rounded response from someone who is a fellow gamer compared to someone who is not a fellow gamer. Does that make sense?

Jem 18:24

Yeah.

matt 18:26

When we had Tom on recently and Gem

Alex 18:28

Hmm.

matt 18:28

about, passing as, non feminist

Alex 18:32

Yeah.

matt 18:33

and that's what this comes down to is that feeling of to pass as this, this default citizen that. That you could go into anyone and say, oh, what do you do in your spare time? Says, oh, I play games.

Alex 18:55

Yeah.

matt 18:55

what kind of games? Oh, I play some sort of action ones, with my boyfriend, and then that way present it as going, oh, she might not be a real, like a gamer. Gamer'cause only boys are gaming, so she must just watch her boyfriend play and then can pass as the average person that everyone thinks they should be that's what they would tell to a stranger.

Alex 19:21

It's a bit like sometimes the way people react when I tell them what I studied at university. I'll get one of two reactions to saying I've studied Egyptology. Either people go, oh my God, that's so cool. Or they'll just go, oh, that's interesting. But I'll know that they probably think it's a really strange choice, but I feel that way sometimes about gaming as well. You kind of know who you are talking to and you can kind of judge it from there I suppose that's being, I mean, overthinking conversations again, but, you know, it's about judging what's right for the people you're talking to, I guess.

matt 19:58

This is another thing where the Angry Joe show Alexs is really helping me as well, there's, your soul. This is what I believe. There's your soul, which is the things that you love. That's what you are, and you can find people who. You can present that like with as little filter as as possible. So like with us here, the conversations that we have, like when me and Alex talk about Ghost of Tsusima and then Ghost of Yte, when Jem and I talk about The Last US. We can just immediately come. Oh, do you remember that bit in the last of us? Oh my God, yes. I remember that bit in the last of us. I'm watching Angry Joe Play Last of Us part two right now, and we could immediately come together and talk about it for untold hours, any of the games that we've done. And, then if I was to pivot to someone I didn't know very well, that part of me is still there, but it can't be expressed and it can't be seen the way that it can be seen amongst people who have that same experience. it is okay to only hunt down people who you can have that relationship with. You don't need to be. Compressing yourself or diluting yourself be appealable to like the large majority. It's okay to go, I am this, I know I am definitely these things so I can find people who are also definitely those things and then only go for them. And that's okay. That is a wild thing to go. It is possible to find people who you can be as yourself, as you can be with as minimal filter as you can be, and that you can find those people do that. And. That's again, another thing that gaming gives the opportunity for.

Jem 22:16

There's a lot to be said for finding your tribe. I talk about it a lot, but, for me, I think I have multiple tribes because I do have, my gaming tribe but I also have my witchy. Women tribe. And there's plenty of people within that tribe who don't understand the gaming side at all. I think that the similarity across the board for that is that all of the people who I interact with on a regular basis, who I class as my tribes, are. Respectful of those aspects of my personality. And that's the key thing I think, it's, they don't need to be into gaming. They just need to be respectful of the fact that I'm into gaming and that, that I view it as a valuable and valid way of spending my time. And that's really all that I think I need from the people around me. And I think that as I've built that group up over the last 10, 15 years. I think that is also had the sort of flip side impact of improving my relationship with my gaming side, you know, to basically get me to a place where I feel comfortable saying that I game comfortable gaming and that it can have all of these positive, impacts on my wellbeing. So I sort of feel that that brings us full circle really on that topic. before we finish up, I just wanted to bring up another study that came out last year, and again from Oxford. And this one looked at a way that we can understand. The impact of games on wellbeing. They were saying that for too long, people have just talked about the amount of time that people spend gaming and, that's way too shallow a way to view it. And so what they wanted to look at is what are the potential health impacts? And then how. Does this relate to the individual and the context within which they're playing? And how can we look at this from a sort of causal perspective? And there, this is the initial. Work. It came up with a list of 13 potential impacts, mechanisms through which gaming might impact, mental wellbeing. And it wants to use those as jumping off points for, further research so that we can better understand that so that we can support people. And I'm. Would really hope that actually that information could go back into, helping better games be designed, making games more accessible.'Cause one of the things that they found is that gaming is beneficial for marginal or neurodivergent players like to explore identity, for example. So, you know, we know that there are these very positive impacts and I think, they're trying to. Take it away from, as you were saying Matt, in the last episode, this kind of outdated idea that, too much gaming is bad and it's all about, replacing gaming with some better, more healthy lifestyle choices. And what they're saying is that, no, that is a way too simple way of looking at this.

matt 26:04

Yeah. Again, with other studies, it feels like the person running the study might not be the kind of gamer that we would identify as.'cause feels like the way we've been talking about it, it's so. Feeling based. It's so, well for me at any rate, like it's my soul. My soul speaks through it. And to try and quantify that into these things and it. It doesn't, it doesn't talk about why we're stressed. How effective can something be if you're stressed that your favorite football team is in the final and they might lose, they're stressed because you are getting divorced. The cause and effects of things. It's just, it's too missing the point of it, for me anyway.

Alex 27:05

I think it's very interesting. I'd be very interested to find out more about each of the jumping off points. As you say, Matt, I think always with any kind of study, there's room for nuance, because we are all different there's a lot of different levels to a lot of these 13 mechanisms. But I definitely think that we've talked about a lot of them already on the pod, so I'd be super interested to see how the study goes. For sure.

Jem 27:34

Yeah, I think it's just nice that they're talking about it in a slightly more nuanced way, and they are recognizing that, simple playtime is never the right variable. It's like caning calories without. Thinking about nutrition I think you're right, Matt. We have to understand that we're so much further down this road than, a lot of people. And, we've been thinking about this and talking about this. In a pretty hardcore way for the last six years. And, I think we're in a very different place. But it's good to see that they're recognizing these different aspects and hopefully that that can give a better, understanding as to how beneficial gaming can be for people. And then that will change people's attitudes, which then means that we can all feel perfectly good about our gaming and not feel guilty, and therefore get lots and lots of wellbeing points from it. So that's my hope. Anyway, I think we're done with, this for now and we will definitely come back to these topics going forward because as you say, Alex, there's a lot to be unpicked and, it'll be interesting to see what happens. In the future with these studies we're here every Thursday with some sort of games related topic, and we're always looking at how that impacts on the world of equality and diversity and inclusion. And if you have a topic that you'd like us to cover, please do let us know. And we will see you here next Thursday. So thank you both very much for your time as always. I'll say goodbye