Social, behavioral, and academic ramifications of video game playing in college

The purpose of this research project is to determine whether video game usage influences the psychological wellbeing of college students. Additionally, this project seeks to understand general technology usage habits among students and whether this affects their school performance. Previous research suggests video games may be used to treat psychological issues such as anxiety. Self-report studies also note that video games have been helpful in certain populations to cope with stress, develop positive social behaviors, and improve on cognitive abilities (Schuurmans et al., 2018; Carras et al., 2018; Nuyens, Kuss, Lopez-Fernandez, & Griffiths, 2019). Since psychological wellbeing is an important factor in academic performance (e.g. Carton & Goodboy, 2015; Punia & Malaviya, 2015), the current study will examine potential relationships between gaming and college GPAs. However, poor habits related to technological usage may lead to negative mental health outcomes. We employed a survey to be completed by college students at Texas Woman’s University. We tested our data using ANOVAs and found that gaming tendencies were not significantly associated with GPA but was associated with negative mental health outcomes and increased issues with boundary management. Our findings may be useful for clinicians in treating addictive gaming tendencies. Future research should examine more diverse student populations.