Internet gaming, embodied distress, and psychosocial well-being: A syndemic-syndaimonic continuum.

ABSTRACT: We examine internet gaming-related suffering as a novel syndemic most prevalent among contemporary emerging adults. Synthetic analysis of our prior research on internet gaming and health affirms how social factors and mental and physical wellness mutually condition each other in this online play context. Employing biocultural anthropological mixed methods, we focus on statistical interactions between intensive gaming and social well-being in relation to genomic markers of immune function. We show that among gamers with low social well-being, intensive game play is associated with compromised immunity markers, but among those with robust social connection, that same play correlates with decreased activation of stress-related immunity activation. The apparently beneficial interaction of high

SUBMITTER: Snodgrass JG 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7289667 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature