Video game play is becoming an increasingly widespread way of spending free time. With the growing number of players, there has also been an increase in the need to understand how gaming relates to players' health. Previous studies examined the relationship between gaming, anxiety and depression, but did not focus on the games' characteristics. The aim of my study was to complement and expand the previous findings. I focused on the relationship between anxiety, depression, mindfulness and several gaming factors (time spent playing, game genre, game type and game camera). There were 299 participants (177 male and 122 female) between the ages of 18 and 35. I expected more play time would correlate with lower anxiety in men, that competitive game play would correlate with higher anxiety, that playing action adventure games would correlate with lower depression, that playing in first person would correlate with higher anxiety and that men and women prefer different game genres. Results show that time spent playing didn't correlate with anxiety and depression, although gamers had lower anxiety than non gamers. Players of competitive games had lower anxiety while players of individual games had higher anxiety. Most time was spent on games in which players played in a group with others. Men preferred competitive games, while women preferred individual games. The highest amount of online harassment was observed in competitive games. Men preferred shooter and sports games, while women preferred strategy games. Game genre wasn't related to depression, but players of sports games had lower anxiety, while players of strategy games had higher anxiety. Game camera wasn't related to anxiety. More time spent playing was related to more mindfulness and gamers as a group were more mindful that non gamers. Mindfulness wasn't related to game camera, genre or type.
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