Video games especially have become a necessary tether for people to friends they aren’t able to see as much, or at all, in person. ADADPeople who played more video games online also reported higher levels of stress, though Pennington said they didn’t specify what games were being played or if they were doing it in combination with other communication tools. Video games have long been social, even when it was just people playing side-by-side on the same sofa. Video games can be played on dedicated consoles, PCs or smartphones, and many popular titles allow people to play friends or strangers online. Maybe they’ll have an old fashioned LAN party night, he said, where everyone gets together and plays video games on their own computers in the same location.

Source: Washington Post March 20, 2021 12:01 UTC