Post-gaming return to reality: a key factor in predicting the positive and negative outcomes of escapism

Description

People play games to escape, and escaping can soothe or can slide into disorder. Agnieszka Strojny and Paweł Strojny propose that what matters is the return: how smoothly a player steps back into real life after a session. They define a post-gaming return measure with two parts. One part is how easily one disengages from the game; the other is how easily one re-engages with daily activities. They test the measure in two studies of active gamers.

Across both samples, a smoother return went with better mood, satisfied needs, and more vitality after play, and with fewer gaming disorder symptoms, beyond the effect of escape motives alone. Easy disengagement was the strongest guard against disorder, while easy re-engagement tracked vitality and life satisfaction. The authors argue for judging escapist play dynamically, by how the session ends, not just by why it began.

Catalog record

Source: https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13553813