David Cooper

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Coming up, are video games relaxing or secretly stressing you out?

A new study says it all depends on why you play them, whether it's for fun, an escape, or the obsessive need to win.

I'm David Cooper, in for Alex Pearson, and if you know anyone who games a little too much, we'll go over the psychology of that next.

Part of The Last Show with David Cooper.

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The Last Show with David Cooper.

After a long day, some people fire up a video game to kick back and unwind, while others to crush strangers and defeat everybody on the leaderboard.

But psychologically, those two cases of gaming might be two completely different experiences, and one may come with a pretty big dose of anxiety.

I'm here with someone who has studied this.

She is a psychology professor at Palo Alto University, and her name is Kaylee Waters.

Kaylee, welcome into the show.

Did you get to play a lot of video games when you were doing research for this paper?

I'm always curious about gaming research.

At the commercial break, you were telling me you play video games to kick back and relax.

What made you suspect that sort of one category of playing and then die hard?

I got to beat everybody.

I got to be number one on the leaderboard is sort of another style of play and that they would be very different for people.