Minecraft over mindfulness: how playing video games can help you through quarantine

Playing video games puts your mind in a ‘flow’ state that helps focus your energy, and provides the distraction necessary to get through quarantine, study finds

Conversely, while practising mindfulness can help you out of a crisis situation during a lockdown, its effect is the polar opposite of creating a distraction

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To get through quarantine you need a distraction, such as that generated playing video games, research conducted in China at the height of the pandemic there shows. Photo: Getty Images

Published: 5:15pm, 22 Nov 2020Updated: 5:15pm, 22 Nov 2020

Your best strategy for surviving a protracted coronavirus lockdown may not be mindfulness, but playing video games, researchers say.

That’s because video-game playing – like running – is an immersive activity that helps people focus their energy by entering a state of “flow”, say the American and Chinese researchers.

Being in a state of flow reduces stress and helps time pass more quickly, the researchers say.

The paper, which was published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLoS ONE this month, was based on interviews with 5,000 people in major Chinese cities – especially Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged.

Playing video games is actually a great way to get through a quarantine. Photo: Getty Images

The researchers measured people’s loneliness, feelings of depression or anxiety, and whether they were engaging in healthy or unhealthy behaviours.