Nostalgia in video games.

Video games have been a popular form of media entertainment since the 1970s, with gamers of all ages experiencing and engaging digital worlds and creating lasting memories in those spaces. As video games mature, so are their players-by some estimates, the average age of a gamer is in their 30s, and often playing games with their children. As such, video games are a potentially powerful elicitor of nostalgia, as is being recognized in more recent research and discourse. In this article, we describe and explain nostalgia as elicited from video gaming experiences, discuss the effects of gaming-induced nostalgia on psychological well-being, and offer direct avenues for fostering and growing this research.

From cognitive overload to digital detox: Psychological implications of telework during the COVID-19 pandemic.

For most people, telework during the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates the increased use of digital tools. Although working from home can enhance flexibility, it comes with various psychological challenges, all of which can be substantially exacerbated for people during the COVID-19 pandemic. The increased need to use digital tools can create cognitive overload that may negatively impact work productivity and well-being. The idea of digital detox has received increasing attention in the last few years as a means for recovering from stress caused by the use of digital media. This paper presents an analysis of the relationships between the use of digital work tools, the feeling of cognitive overload, digital detox measures, perceived work performance, and well-being. Results from an online survey (N = 403) conducted during the period of strict lockdown measures in Germany in April and May 2020 indicate that the relationship between the use of text-based tools and well-being, but not perceived job performance, is mediated by cognitive overload. These relationships were not found for the use of videoconferencing tools. However, for users of these tools, the number of digital detox measures moderates the relationship between cognitive overload and the perception of work demands.

Exploring Viewers' Experiences of Parasocial Interactions with Videogame Streamers on Twitch.

Research on parasocial interaction (PSI) has a long tradition in noninteractive environments such as watching TV or listening to radio speakers. In the past years, researchers have started to apply PSI on videogame streaming environments, where the audience can interact with the observed media persona and get immediate feedback on their messages and requests. In a 3 × 2 online experiment (N = 251), we manipulated how a streamer addressed participants (individual vs. collective vs. no addressing) and whether he paid attention to and answered messages in the chat (attention vs. no attention to the chat). Findings show that the more individually participants were addressed and whether the streamer reacted to messages in the chat affected experiences of PSI. Furthermore, alongside their overall enjoyment, PSI predicted viewers' commitment to social norms. We discuss these findings regarding their implications for the conceptualization of PSI in light of interactive novel technologies.

A matter of font type: The effect of serifs on the evaluation of scientific abstracts.

Text-based communication is one of the substantial ways of spreading scientific information. While the content and contextual aspects of written words have been widely researched, the impact of font characteristics on text perception is an almost blank page. The following study deals with the influence of serifs on the evaluation of online-presented scientific abstracts. Yet there is only evidence for faster reading times when texts are presented in sans-serif fonts, although the opposite is stated in parts of the literature. The present work examines if the presence or absence of serifs also have an impact on the appraisal of scientific texts when all other important font characteristics do not change. For this purpose, 188 university students participated in an online experiment and rated different aspects of scientific abstracts as well as of the research outlined in the abstracts. The results show that missing serifs led to increased reading speed. However, and in contrast to the perceptual fluency hypothesis, the presence of serifs had a positive effect on all evaluation dimensions. The results of a second study with 187 participants also indicated that reading fluency counteracted the liking of texts. Implications for future studies and media production are discussed.