Measuring the Product Environment: How do Video Games on Health Behaviors?
A new consumer survey looks at how video game play influences our health habits.
This report is the second in a series of reports on the results from a consumer survey on health-related behaviors and the influence of popular products and services. Fielded by Building H, a project to build health into everyday life, the survey examined the influences of social media, video games, automobiles and bicycles on eating habits, physical activity, sleep and other behaviors. This report is based on survey questions that focus specifically on video game platforms and major game publishers. More information on the survey project can be found here.
Key Findings
- Users of VR platforms (PlayStation VR or Meta Quest) stood out from users of other platforms in nearly every behavior we asked respondents about.
- They reported eating more healthy snacks than users of other, more conventional platforms. Paradoxically, though, VR users reported eating more fast food, having more meals delivered, and consuming more energy drinks than users of other platforms.
- They sat or reclined less and moved more during gameplay.
- They deferred sleep more than other platform users yet got more sleep overall.
- They reported more in-person social visits than other platform users despite a large proportion reporting being lonely.
- They played video games outdoors more often than other platform users.
- Non-gamers consume much less fast food and use meal delivery services far less frequently than heavy gamers.
- Heavy users of video games on all platforms and for both publishers reported delaying sleep yet also had smaller proportions of respondents getting six or less hours of sleep per night than non-gamers.
- Heavy gamers were more likely to report being lonely than non-gamers.
- Heavy users of all platforms reported that playing video games had a positive effect on their social connectedness despite reporting higher levels of loneliness.
Introduction
At Building H, we focus on the “product environment” — the commercial products and services that collectively weave the fabric of everyday life — and how it shapes people’s health. For the Building H Index, we assess how popular products and services influence the health behaviors of their users. As part of our analysis, we conduct surveys of the products’ users.
With support from Einhorn Collaborative, Building H contracted with the research firm Verasight to conduct a survey of US consumers about their use of certain types of commercial products and services and their health habits. Respondents were asked about their use of and experiences with popular social media platforms, video and computer games, automobiles and bicycles, along with questions about their eating habits, levels of physical activity, sleep, the amount of time they spent outdoors and, in particular, their social connection and social experience. The online survey was completed by a demographically representative sample of over 3,100 US adults and was conducted between August 22 and September 5, 2023.
This report focuses on five health behaviors related to the use of gaming platforms by Nintendo, PlayStation, Xbox, Steam and Meta Quest as well as popular titles by publishers Activision Blizzard (Call of Duty, Diablo) and Electronic Arts (EA), whose titles include FIFA, Madden NFL, PGA Tour and Apex Legends. We worked with the Foundation for Social Connection and members of their Scientific Advisory Council, specifically Carla Perissinotto and Matthew Smith, to craft survey questions that would probe Americans’ social experiences generally and with these products/services specifically.
Findings
Who games?
Fifty (52) percent of survey respondents reported using one or more of the five game platforms. We looked at how these users break down by gender, age and income.
Consistently, a larger proportion of gamers on all platforms were male although there were also some platforms with large female user bases as well. For each platform, less than one percent of users identified as other.
To no surprise, for both platforms and publishers, the majority of users are in either the 18–29 or 30–49 age groups. People in those age groups are roughly twice as likely to use the major gaming platforms as those in the 50–64 and 65+ age groups.
Similar to above, specific to each platform, the vast majority of users are 50 years old or less and the same holds true for an even larger majority of heavy users.
The likelihood of using any of the major gaming platforms was associated with income, with higher income respondents more likely to play.
We also looked into the distribution of user incomes across the major platforms and the titles by Activision Blizzard and EA and found them to be largely comparable.
How much time do people spend playing games?
We asked gamers the length of typical session playin their favorite game, the amount of time they spend on each platform each day, and their total amount of time spent playing games each week.
Half of gamers reported that a typical gaming session lasted either 30 minutes to an hour (25%) or one to two hours (25%).
The use patterns for Activision Blizzard and EA users were somewhat different, with both having few users with short sessions and Activision Blizzard users more likely to report average sessions of two hours or more.
We also asked users of the major platforms how much time they spend on each platform, on average, each day, and how much time they spend playing games each week.
Approximately half of users for each platform reported playing an hour or more per day
In terms of time spent (on all platforms) per week, people who play on PlayStation VR stood out as the heaviest overall users.
Game Playing and Health Behaviors
In addition to asking about use patterns and which game consoles and titles people play, we asked respondents about their health habits generally and how their game play is connected with those habits. We specifically examined five health behaviors: eating, physical activity, sleep, social connection and spending time outdoors.
For the analyses of how game play is associated with different health behaviors, we defined several groups of gamers:
- non-gamers, who reported that they did not use any of the six platforms — PlayStation, Nintendo, Xbox, Steam, PlayStation VR or Meta Quest
- light users, meaning that they reported playing no more than two hours per week
- moderate users, who reported playing between two and five hours per week
- heavy users, who reported playing more than five hours per week
- heavy PlayStation users, who reported playing games on their PlayStation for at least one hour per day
- heavy Nintendo users, who reported playing games on their Nintendo system for at least one hour per day
- heavy Xbox users, who reported playing games on their Xbox for at least one hour per day
- heavy Steam users, who reported playing games on Steam for at least one hour per day
- heavy PlayStation VR users, who reported playing games on their PlayStation VR for at least one hour per day
- heavy Quest users, who reported playing games on their Meta (or Oculus) Quest for at least one hour per day
- heavy Activision users, whose most frequently played game in the last month was one of the publisher’s titles and who reported that a typical gaming session lasted for at least one hour
- heavy EA users, whose most frequently played game in the last month was reported playing one of the publisher’s titles and who reported that a typical gaming session lasted for at least one hour
Eating habits
To explore the links between video game play and eating habits, we asked survey respondents about snacking and use of energy drinks while playing, use of food delivery services, eating fast food, and cooking meals at home.
Snacking
Approximately 50% of game players reported snacking “frequently” or “always or almost always” while playing. There was little variation among the platforms; only VR users (PlayStation VR and Meta Quest), both all and heavy, tended to snack slightly more while gaming than other platform users.
Heavy Activision and EA users snacked slightly more than the overall users of each publisher.
We asked players how healthy their snacks were:
- More than 60% of game players reported that their snacking habits while gaming were either “somewhat” or “very” healthy, in terms of both quality and quantity.
- Both PlayStation and PlayStation VR, as well as Meta Quest users, reported very healthy snacks in noticeably greater proportions than any other platform.
EA users reported more of their snacks being healthy
Fast Food and Delivery Services
We also asked respondents about their use of food delivery services and about eating food from fast food restaurants:
- As the amount of weekly gaming increased, so did the utilization of meal delivery services. Console users as a whole utilized meal deliveries much more than did non-gamers or light users — with VR users getting the most deliveries.
We asked respondents about their fast food intake on a weekly basis — that is, how many fast food meals did they pick up, eat at the restaurant, or have delivered. Non-gamers and light users consumed considerably less fast food than those who were heavy users, for the most part independent of platform. Users of virtual reality platforms (PlayStation VR and Meta Quest) consumed the most fast food.
Heavy users of each publisher’s games had similar fast food consumption and meal delivery utilization as users of the platforms, other than the VR users.
Energy Drinks
We also asked about consumption of energy drinks while playing:
- More than 40% of users of all platforms reported consuming energy drinks “frequently” or “always or almost always.”
- Users of VR platforms (PlayStation VR and Meta Quest) consumed energy drinks while gaming in noticeably larger proportions compared to other platforms. Consumption also appears to be tied to how much someone plays.
Heavy users of Activision and EA titles consumed energy drinks a little less often than users of other platforms.
The findings of our survey revealed most eating behaviors are similar among different platforms. Major differences were found between the non-gamers or light gamers compared to the console users for fast food and meal deliveries as well as energy drink consumption for light-users; they consumed much less. Of the platforms, the VR platforms showed the strongest associations with less healthy eating behaviors: their users consumed fast food, energy drinks, and utilized meal delivery services at higher proportions than users of other platforms. Despite these differences, VR users — especially PlayStation VR users — reported eating more healthy snacks than users of other platforms. While there is nothing in the data that suggests VR use causes less healthy eating behaviors, it is plausible that the additional time we observed spent on VR games leaves less time available for healthier habits, such as preparing home-cooked meals.
Apart from inter-console differences in eating habits, an important comparison can be made between non-gamers and heavy users of any console or platform. Most notably, non-gamers received many fold less meal deliveries per week and ate less fast food than did heavy gamers of all platforms. While fast food consumption and meal deliveries were most common among heavy gamers in the 30–49 and 18–29 age groups, non-gamers in those age groups were four-to-seven times less likely to be frequent consumers of fast food or meal delivery services. Non-gamers also ate much less fast food than heavy gamers of any platform.
Physical Activity
Gaming is usually thought of as a sedentary activity so we were interested in evaluating this assumption to see if gamers got in any movement while playing as well as their position while doing so.
Gaming Position
In terms of position, VR users sat or reclined while gaming slightly less than users of other consoles or platforms.
Activision and EA users sat or reclined more often than users of individual consoles.
VR users stood or actively moved while gaming more often than users of stationary consoles.
Heavy Activision and EA users stood or actively moved about as much or a little less than heavy users of different consoles.
Overall Physical Activity
Respondents were also asked about the amount of dedicated physical activity they got each week:
All platforms, as well as non-gamers, have roughly similar proportions of users getting the recommended two and a half hours of exercise per week and their users’ activity is comparable to or slightly better than non-gamers.
Non-gamers and gamers alike have a similar proportion of respondents getting the recommended two and a half hours of exercise per week. Heavy gamers also reported getting less than 30 minutes of exercise per week in much smaller proportions than non-gamers.
Heavy Activision and EA users got as much as or a little more exercise than typical users of individual consoles.
It did not come as a surprise that VR users played more actively, i.e. not sitting or reclining as much and instead standing and actively moving more. This result highlights the potential utility of VR devices for health supporting gaming: both unconscious increases in exercise and games dedicated for workouts and movement. The results showing that heavy gamers get as much or more overall physical activity than non-gamers could be explained in part by the role of income, which has a high association with physical activity (i.e. more income is associated with more physical activity) and this association is stronger than that between game use and physical activity.
Sleeping
In an attempt to capture the changes in sleep due to playing video games, we were interested in both the duration of sleep for all respondents as well as how often gamers delayed sleep onset in order to continue playing.
Gamers were asked how often they deferred sleep:
- Heavy gamers consistently deferred sleep in order to play video games, especially VR users.
Respondents also answered a question about their average sleep duration:
- Non-gamers received less sleep than gamers; VR users again stood out as getting more sleep than any other platform user (fewer VR users received 6 or fewer hours of sleep per night).
Heavy Activision and EA users had similar or slightly higher proportions of respondents reporting getting six or less hours of sleep compared to some of the platform specific users. At the same time, they also had lower proportions of sleep deferral compared to other platform users.
Once again VR users differed from users of the other platforms in a noticeable manner: they reported deferring sleep more often yet also reported getting more total sleep. The more time one spends playing games, the more likely they are to defer sleep. Despite this association, heavy gamers did not lose sleep overall and in fact reported sleeping more hours per night than non-gamers. Among the different platforms and publisher titles we considered, heavy Activision and heavy EA users had the highest proportion of respondents reporting getting six or less hours of sleep per night. Despite this finding, as mentioned above, it did not hold that delaying sleep had a reducing effect of it overall. In fact, heavy gamers who delayed sleep reported getting six or fewer hours of sleep per night in smaller proportions than non-gamers. This finding is surprising, when one considers that, for example, over 80% of heavy VR users deferred sleep two or more nights per week yet reported the smallest proportion getting 6 or less hours of sleep.
Engaging socially
Gamers were asked a series of questions pertaining to their social lives or social aspects of gaming. Results from a number of these questions were covered in The Connection Paradox, another report in this series. Key results from that report included:
- Gamers and non-gamers alike found similar satisfaction in their relationships with friends and family (58–64%).
- 20% of gamers play equally online and in person with friends with an equal proportion not playing with friends in any manner.
- Over half (53%) of gamers rarely or never or sometimes use text chatting to talk with others while gaming
Here we look more closely at how some of these questions vary across the game platforms (and titles from leading game publishers).
- Users reporting gaming played single player games always, or almost always, in similar amounts, ranging from 22–24%, with the exceptions of 16% for PlayStation VR and 18% for Meta Quest.
- 30% of Activision users and 36% of EA users used single player mode always or almost always.
- Users of all platforms played multiplayer games equally: 4–5% always or almost always, 12–14% mostly.
- 17% of Activision users frequently played multiplayer games (6% always or almost always, 11% mostly) , as did 17% of EA users (3% always or almost always, 14% mostly).
- There was not a large difference between any of the user categories although one thing stood out: heavy gamers were more lonely than non-gamers by a noticeable margin.
Heavy gamers, despite rating themselves as more lonely, experienced more in person visits than non-gamers, especially VR users.
Respondents were asked a series of questions assessing how video games impacted their social lives on 13 different elements of social connection. The questions were adapted from the Retrospective Assessment for Connection Impact scale developed by Matthew Smith.
Respondents almost universally rated each element of social connection to be positively influenced by video games, excluding a very slight negative average among light users for meeting new people, making new friends, and receiving emotional support. Our survey results suggest that video games do play a beneficial role in gamer’s social lives.
The scores for the different platforms and publishers are shown below.
We found users of all platforms played single player modes more than they did multiplayer ones although the margins were not large. The only difference that stood out was the larger proportion, over the platforms, of Activision and EA users who played single player modes. While both gaming and non-gaming respondents reported being lonely, heavy gamers reported being lonely more so than non-gamers. This finding could be influenced by the fact that gaming usually takes place at home where individuals can isolate themselves from others. From the loneliness ratings alone, playing video games would seem to have an overall detrimental effect on user’s social lives although we did not find that to be the case. Despite respondents of all gaming categories having sizable proportions of lonely people, on average, they consistently reported slight positive effects from their game play on all 13 elements of social connection we probed. In both all and heavy user groups, all platforms and publishers had a positive effect on social connectedness and PlayStation VR users reported the greatest benefit. In addition to the above, heavy gamers also reported either receiving visitors or visiting others more than non-gamers. These results from our consumer research reveal a possible difference between gamer’s perception of their loneliness and their level of social activity. Certainly, social interaction online, while different from in-person interaction, is valued by game players.
Spending Time Outdoors
We were interested in the amount of time respondents spent outdoors, as gaming is typically an indoor activity. Respondents answered two questions on getting outdoors: how much time daily they spent outside during the summer and how often they played video games outdoors.
Users of traditional consoles and platforms (PlayStation, Xbox, Steam, Nintendo) gamed outdoors much less than VR users. This result is not unexpected as VR devices are portable and can be used in a much freer manner than a stationary console.
Interestingly, heavy gamers reported spending more time outdoors than non-gamers.
Heavy Activision and EA users were among the groups that spent the most time outdoors.
VR users played video games outdoors more often than users of other platforms and that is likely due to the portability of VR devices. The finding that was the most intriguing for this behavior was that heavy gamers reported spending more time outdoors than non-gamers. We found a significant association between age and time spent outdoors: people aged 30–49, a group heavily represented among gamers, were more likely to report an hour or more per day of outside time than other age groups. The finding that heavy gamers spend more time outdoors than non-gamers could be in part explained by this correlation.
Discussion:
From our survey results, it appears that video games have both positive and negative effects on their users’ health behaviors. Despite some findings such as more fast food consumption and sleep deferral being common among gamers, they also reported experiencing enhanced social lives and getting more exercise overall than non-gamers. With about half of our respondents reporting video game use, and the same proportion reporting playing an hour or more per day, this activity is part of many lives. Looking forward, there is an opportunity to think proactively about how video games can be designed to be a positive influence on many aspects of health.
Acknowledgements
Carla Perisinotto, Matthew Smith and Abigail Barth from the Foundation for Social Connection; Ben Leff, Amelia Goranson and Jake Rothschild from Verasight; Sara Singer from Stanford University and Building H’s Evan Cook, Lorena Moreno Aguilar and Steve Downs all contributed to the development of the survey and/or the analysis of results.
Additional Reports:
Additional reports in this series include:
