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Author: Fiona Scott, Senior Lecturer in Digital Literacies, University of Sheffield
Original article: https://theconversation.com/how-video-games-can-support-childrens-wellbeing-246350
My family, like many others, enjoys spending the weekends in play – including playing video games. For our four-year-old, creating choreography in Toca Dance and solving puzzles in Magic Light’s Gruffalo Games have been recent hits.
But while play is understood as vitally important for children’s learning and wellbeing, digital play is still something that can make families feel conflicted. Parents may worry about too much screen time, or their children’s online safety. Online games may put children at risk of scams, or allow them to interact with strangers.
Much research has highlighted the risks associated with children’s digital play, focusing primarily on children’s safety and privacy. Over the past few years, my team of researchers at the University of Sheffield and beyond have been working with Unicef and The Lego Foundation to investigate the relationship between children’s digital play and their wellbeing.
We carried out detailed case studies of 20 children aged between six and 12 and their families in the UK. These indicated that when designed well, digital and video games can support children’s wellbeing in a range of important ways.
It’s true that digital play may pose risks to children’s online safety, but there are ways to minimise this. Games with solo-play design prevent any contact with strangers. However, well designed in-game communication is also supportive of children’s wellbeing through social connection.
For some children in our study, such as seven-year-old Dylan, online play such as in Fortnite offered controlled opportunities to encounter, discuss and learn about a range of online risks under the watchful eye of his parents. This experience contributed to his critical digital literacy, ultimately preparing him for future experiences online.
Understanding identity and being creative
Well designed digital games help children explore, construct and express their individual identities – their own sense of self. These games can also help build collective identities, a sense of affinity with the experiences, attributes and interests of others.
Exploring their emerging and evolving identities is important for children’s wellbeing, but doing so in play with friends can feel high risk. Children strive for social acceptance among their peers, so trialling newly emerging aspects of their identity can make them feel vulnerable to social isolation and embarrassment.
For nine-year-old Penny, Bloxburg (a role-play and life simulation game within the Roblox platform) was an important avenue for exploring aspects of her identity. She was able to play at changing her physical appearance and exploring her developing interest in cooking before trying these changes out in interactions with friends and family.
Alena Ozerova/Shutterstock
Our research showed that Penny’s identity play was supported by Bloxburg’s open-world design, which allows children to pursue niche interests and activities. Other design features that supported identity exploration included customisation and solo play options.
Research has shown creativity is vital for children’s wellbeing. In our study, digital games helped children imagine different possibilities, act on original ideas and make things.
Ten-year-old Henry felt joy when designing and building rollercoasters in Theme Park Tycoon 2. Playing games like Pokémon Scarlet and Violet was a rich source of artistic inspiration for ten-year-old Hailey, who loved drawing and writing stories about Pokémon characters. It’s an example of how opportunities to create and customise objects, landscapes and avatars particularly can support creativity.
Other research has also indicated that video games can be good for creativity. For example, a 2020 study by the National Literacy Trust found a link between playing video games and creativity through writing.
Achievement, control and understanding emotions
Leisure time is also an important opportunity for children to experience both competence and autonomy – which both support wellbeing. Competence is associated with a sense of mastery and feeling you can achieve meaningful goals. Autonomy is a sense of control and agency – feeling you have freedom of choice.
Well-designed digital games allow children to experience mastery and feel they can achieve. Our research showed the design features such as games with levels and challenges particularly supported feelings of competence.
World of Goo is a physics-based puzzle video game in which players must discover how to use a range of materials to conquer construction challenges. Overcoming tricky levels in this game fostered feelings of pride for seven-year-old Romeo: “You know thatʼs quite hard, did you see that mama? I did that!”
Connections, inclusion and safety
Digital play allows children to manage social connections, feel belonging and develop an awareness of others. Playing Fortnite helped seven-year-old Dylan to maintain friendships when his family moved house during the pandemic.
Meanwhile, nine-year-old Pinar’s mum reflected on her “warm memories” of interacting and building together with Pinar and her sister in Minecraft, a sandbox game in which players can construct elaborate imagined worlds.
When designed well, digital play can also help with inclusion. Pinar, who is autistic, found connecting with others hard due to “confusing” social interactions and sensory overload. Playing Minecraft in a server set up for neurodiverse children allowed her to connect positively in play with friends and family.
Minecraft’s customisation features supported her wellbeing by allowing her to adapt her play environment, controlling the sensory environment and degree of social interaction.