000			02555 am a22002173u 4500
042			_adc
100	1	0	_aSnodgrass, Jeffrey G. _eauthor _9734
700	1	0	_aLacy, Michael G. _eauthor _9735
700	1	0	_aCole, Steven W. _eauthor _9736
245	0	0	_aInternet gaming, embodied distress, and psychosocial well-being: A syndemic-syndaimonic continuum
260			_c2022-02.
500			_a/pmc/articles/PMC7289667/
500			_a/pubmed/31879045
520			_aWe 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 higher social well-being and intensive game play resonates with an emerging body of research showing how positive practices-in this case, engaged and pleasurable videogame play-can increase resilience to the negative linked psychological and genomic responses to precarity. Based on these findings, we argue, in relation to gaming behaviors, a syndemics analysis could usefully be expanded by attending to both sides of the synergistic interaction between two social conditions: not just exacerbation of dysfunction in relation to their combined effect, but also non-additive enhancement of health that may stem from such combinations. We draw on literature emphasizing the relevance to health of "eudaimonic" well-being-psychosocial processes that transcend immediate self-gratification and involve the pursuit of meaningful and pro-social goals. On that basis, we propose the term "syndaimonics" to capture synergies between social context and mental flourishing, which, in this context and presumably others, can illuminate sources of health resilience and overall improved psychosocial wellbeing.
540			_a
546			_aen
690			_aArticle
655	7		_aText _2local
786	0		_nSoc Sci Med
856	4	1	_uhttp://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112728 _zConnect to this object online.
999			_c1458 _d1458