Track: High School STEM Poster Competition

Abstract

                     The purpose of this study is to determine whether playing video games is associated with happiness - both in short and longer terms. Previous studies have identified mixed results of video games on mental health. For this study, data was obtained through an online survey sent to teenage students in online and brick-and-mortar schools. Three variables were collected: hours spent playing video games per week, hours of sleep per week (as a confounding variable), and “happiness” ranked on a scale of 1-10. There was an overall, undefined happiness and a “happiness” broken into satisfaction in three categories: academics, relationships, and extracurriculars. Because it was inferred that the average of the satisfaction in the three different categories did not fit with the overall happiness, the averages were used going forward. There were no significant results showing that sleep or “happiness” were different for people who did and did not play video games. The final test of association only indicated that the “happiness” of an individual in a month was associated with hours of sleep. Though the results do not suggest that happiness is associated with playing video games, there was enough evidence that happiness was associated with sleep in a month.