Share Paper: Social and Psychological Impacts of Playing MMORPGs on Older Adults

  1. Fan Zhang, Simon Fraser University, Canada
  2. David Kaufman, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Monday, June 22 4:30 PM-5:00 PM Ballroom East

Abstract: This paper is a report on the findings of a study conducted to analyze the relationships of older adults’ social interactions in MMORPGs and three social-psychological factors (i.e., loneliness, depression and social support). A total of 222 respondents who were aged 55 and WoW players were recruited by a Web survey. It is found that enjoyment of relationships and quality of guild play has deep impacts on older adults’ social and psychological wellbeing. Specifically, higher level of enjoyment of relationships was related to higher level of social support and lower level of loneliness; higher level of quality of guild play ...