With the World Health Organization still pushing for gaming addiction to be classified as a mental disorder in the upcoming ICD-11 revision and various industry organizations trying to stand their ground against this decision, the latest report by Qutee (whose methodology for the survey has been detailed at the end of the article) is particularly timely.
51% of the voters have replied that gaming addiction shouldn't be lumped together with alcohol, gambling or drug addictions. 26% of the pool was unsure about this topic, while 23% believed that indeed, gaming addiction is as bad as the aforementioned ones.
Surveyed gamers were far more unified in their judgment of the media's repeated obsession with linking games and violence. 93% of them said that this obsession is entirely unjustified, 4% was unsure and only 3% thought it's justified.
Moving onto other topics, 89% of gamers feel gaming is beneficial to society and almost two-thirds have made up to five friends through gaming; a further 37% say they have made more than five.
44% of the participants said that the most important benefit of gaming is improved emotional well-being; over 30% of gamers believe gaming improves cognitive skills and problem-solving.
Over one-third said that gaming has inspired future careers and hobbies outside of
IT/development, including history, art and science.
95% of the 835 gamers who participated were aged between 18 and 34, with 51% living in the US, 19% in the UK, and the remaining 30% living in other parts of the world.
The Gaming and You data discussion generated over 4.5k poll votes and 886 comments. 654 sentiments were recorded across 251 discussion topics, with some of the most popular issues discussed being community, stress, skills, friends, hobbies, enjoyment, and problems.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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