An Oxford University study has found that children who play a small amount of video games - less than an hour - every day were among the happiest and most sociable children. This is compared to children who don't play games, or those who play for more than three hours a day.
The study also found no major positive or negative effects for children who spent a moderate amount of time - up to three hours a day - playing games. The participants who spent more than half of their daily free time playing games were not as well adjusted, and could potentially miss out "on other enriching activities".
The research, which involved nearly 5,000 young people, suggests that existing recommended limits on the amount of time kids should spend playing games have little scientific basis.
However, the researchers also stress that many of the observed benefits and downsides are small compared to other factors (such as relationships with family and friends) influencing children's happiness, and that further research is required to explore the findings.
Author Dr Andrew Przybylski from the Oxford Internet Institute explains that "these results support recent laboratory-based experiments that have identified the downsides to playing electronic games. However, high levels of video game-playing appear to be only weakly linked to children's behavioural problems in the real world.
"Likewise, the small, positive effects we observed for low levels of play on electronic games do not support the idea that video games on their own can help children develop in an increasingly digital world."
