The effect of digital games on subjective well-being: A research on Y generation

In today's societies where digital games are becoming an integral part of individual life, it has become increasingly important to understand the effects of digital play on players. The results of national and international research in this area show that digital games have beneficial effects on cognitive abilities such as hand-eye coordination, decision-making, attention and visual-spatial ability. Digital games are a unique form of entertainment because they encourage players to become part of the game's script. Researches (Ryan et al., 2006; Przybylski et al., 2011; Batı, 2011) show that individuals who play digital games are happier than individuals who don't play games. Because playing digital games provides a stress-relieving, pleasurable and comfortable environment for individuals. Playing digital game and being adventure of digital game as well as the effect of individuals on subjective well-being rather than the activity of leisure in everyday life" is the main subject of this study. The aim of the study is to measure the effects of these individuals on the subjective well-being of those who play digital games as Y generation (born between 1981 and 2000). In the study, the scale of causes of digital play developed by the researcher and the subjective well-being scale developed by Tuzgöl-Dost (2004) were used. The data collected as a questionnaire were analyzed with SPSS20 program. The results of the study showed that there was significant difference between the participants according to gender, digital play, frequency of play, game play platform, game type, game play time, while there was no significant difference according to income, marital status, age and personality variables. Shortly, the result of the study is that digital games are positively related to subjective well-being variables.