This research, and thus, the below paper, has been conducted by commission of the International Esports Federation (IESF) to investigate the role of mental health in the esports community, with a specific emphasis on the role esports could have in the mental health support of older players. Over the past two decades, the esports industry has grown consistently, year-on-year, achieving consistent growth of global industry value and most notably to the onlooker, hundreds of millions of viewers each year (Pannekeet, 2019).
Despite this growth, esports continues to be an activity that is pervasive mainly with the younger generations, which for the purposes of this paper will be considered one of three age categories, younger participants being players up to the age of 25. After the age of 25, players enter a second phase of their player journey which is the age group of 25-50, for most professional players that is post-play and during their professional period as staff or in adjacent industries enjoying games as a hobby.
With that in mind, our elderly category as set by ESG Gaming in their continued work with older players, is 50 and above. Using these three categories we are mobilising the below paper to investigate in detail and draw attention to the ways in which esports is being evidenced as a social tool for combating social isolation across all three categories, with a particular focus on the third category as that is the area of the global population that experiences the greatest instances of social isolation.
To address this, we have outlined two core questions each with a more narrowed ‘specific objective’ within them, these areas follows:
Importantly, as the paper is inherently gerontological in nature, it’s important to consider that this area is intently cross-disciplinary in nature and the impact that has on research is immense, meaning that this review could not possibly cover the full scope of the both esports as a social intervention tool for isolation and for social isolation in elderly people, as both research spheres are currently entirely separate. The following item outlines visually how this research review considers these two spheres of investigation, in terms of where the literature currently stands (left) vs where we hope it to be in the next 2-3 years (right):
The British Medical Journal suggests over the past decade, antidepressant prescriptions have almost doubled in England (Leung & Chu, 2023), rising to 85.6 million in 2022-23. Over 8.6 million adults in England (nearly 20% of adults) are now prescribed them annually. Those aged 50 – 55 years are the highest users of antidepressants. Finally, the average duration of time for which a person takes an antidepressant has doubled, with around half of the patients now classed as
long-term users.
Source: Medicines Used in Mental Health – England – 2015/16 to 2021/22 | NHSBSA
Where there was relevant clear literature that connected esports, gaming, and elderly people was looking at gaming as a positive health intervention in elderly people (Hall et al., 2012). Concluding that there is a ‘significant potential’ for games as an interventionist method in elderly mental health.
Hall et al.’s research was carried out as a systematic review of the research literature, conducted through multiple academic databases for works, published between the years 2000 and 2011, looking at digital videogame interventions with adults 65 years of age and older. In the last decade, however, there has not been similar investigation until this paper today.
Whilst we have not been able to instigate the same academic rigour and systematic investigation of global literature on the subject, this literature review provides a qualitative review of the existing findings. From those, we have compiled some examples of esports’ benefits are as follows: