Positive mental well-being and immune transcriptional profiles in highly involved videogame players.

Previous research has identified a link between experiencing life as meaningful and purposeful-what is referred to as "eudaimonia"-and reduced expression of a stress-induced gene profile known as the "conserved transcriptional response to adversity" (CTRA). In the current study, we examine whether similar links between eudaimonic well-being and CTRA reduction occur in a sample of 56 individuals with a particularly strong engagement with virtual worlds: avid online videogame players. Results consistently linked higher eudaimonic well-being, and more specifically the social well-being subdomain of eudaimonia, to lower levels of CTRA gene expression. That favorable psychobiological relationship between eudaimonia and CTRA appeared most strongly among individuals reporting high levels of positive psychosocial involvement with gaming. Findings are consistent with the hypothesis that committed social/recreational activity may help damp CTRA expression especially among persons who are already experiencing some kind of threshold of positive eudaimonic experience.

Social genomics of healthy and disordered internet gaming.

OBJECTIVES: To combine social genomics with cultural approaches to expand understandings of the somatic health dynamics of online gaming, including in the controversial nosological construct of internet gaming disorder (IGD). METHODS: In blood samples from 56 U.S. gamers, we examined expression of the conserved transcriptional response to adversity (CTRA), a leukocyte gene expression profile activated by chronic stress. We compared positively engaged and problem gamers, as identified by an ethnographically developed measure, the Positive and Negative Gaming Experiences Scale (PNGE-42), and also by a clinically derived IGD scale (IGDS-SF9). RESULTS: CTRA profiles showed a clear relationship with PNGE-42, with a substantial linkage to offline social support, but were not meaningfully associated with disordered play as measured by IGDS-SF9. CONCLUSIONS: Our study advances understanding of the psychobiology of play, demonstrating via novel transcriptomic methods the association of negatively experienced internet play with biological measures of chronic threat, uncertainty, and distress. Our findings are consistent with the view that problematic patterns of online gaming are a proxy for broader patterns of biopsychosocial stress and distress such as loneliness, rather than a psychiatric disorder sui generis, which might exist apart from gamers' other life problems. By confirming the biological correlates of certain patterns of internet gaming, culturally-sensitive genomics approaches such as this can inform both evolutionary theorizing regarding the nature of play, as well as current psychiatric debates about the appropriateness of modeling distressful gaming on substance addiction and problem gambling.