13 ways gaming affects your mental health – for better and worse
30 April 2025
New Oxford study offers roadmap for understanding video games’ complex impact on wellbeing
Latest News
Expert Comment: How can we encourage engagement with online fact-checking
22 April 2025
In his latest opinion piece, Dr Mohsen Mosleh explores the role of shared ideology and social connection as influencing factors in fact-checking and countering online misinformation.
Introducing the 2024 MSc Thesis Prize Winners
11 April 2025
We are delighted to announce the winners of the 2024 OII MSc Thesis Prizes. These prizes recognize outstanding work and contributions to the field.
Next Events
06
May
Oxford Digital Ethnography Group Seminar Series
Glocks, Animal Emoji, and ‘Rulay’: How Cartel-Related Gangs Recruit Young Ecuadorians through Viral Content on TikTok
15:30 -17:00, 61 Banbury Road
With Gabriel BritoThis talk explores the under-researched yet highly relevant phenomenon of cartel-related gang recruitment via social media.
Four Graduate Degrees
Academic Spotlight
Find out more about the research of OII academics
Nick Ballou
Postdoctoral Researcher
Nick Ballou is a postdoc researching how video games affect mental health both for better and for worse, and how to make psychological research on games more trustworthy.
Professor Viktor Mayer-Schönberger
Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation
Viktor Mayer-Schönberger is the OII's Professor of Internet Governance and Regulation. His research focuses on the role of information in a networked economy.
Dr Sabrina Norwood
Postdoctoral Researcher
Sabrina studies the relationship between online environments and well-being. Her research includes creating and testing digital behavioural interventions to enhance user autonomy and digital literacy.
Publication Spotlight
By Mariarosaria Taddeo
The defence sector must address how to use advancing AI safely and effectively. Mariarosaria Taddeo offers a systematic analysis of AI’s challenges in defence, providing recommendations for policy-makers and practitioners.
Latest Projects
Conversations between governments and citizens in a digital society
This project seeks to understand how citizens listen and speak to public institutions, and how alternative AI-based models and framing might encourage democratic communication.
The Promise of AI in Childcare
With mobile devices ubiquitous among young people, it is not surprising that parents are increasingly turning to technology for help in childcare. This project examines monitoring technologies and how parents use them as part of child supervision.
Understanding the Causes of the Reverse Personal Computing Revolution
The shift to cloud represents a reversal of the 1980s personal computing revolution: computation is moving from personal devices back into large, centralized facilities. This project seeks to understand the economic drivers of this reversal.
Latest report
By Andres Raieste, Andri Rebane, Madis Tapupere, Keegan McBride
In a world increasingly defined by crises—from pandemics and climate disasters to escalating wars—governments that fail to build digital resilience risk crumbling under pressure.
Press Coverage
13 ways gaming impacts health and wellbeing
BBC News, 30 April 2025
Prof. Andrew Przybylski discusses the ways that gaming positively and negatively influences individual wellbeing on BBC The World Tonight, starting at 24:28.
The 13 health benefits and harms of gaming according to experts
msnbc.com, 30 April 2025
Video games can impact mental wellbeing in various ways, from fostering misogynistic views and loneliness to relieving stress and boosting memory, a new study suggests.
The 13 health benefits and harms of gaming according to experts
The Independent, 30 April 2025
Researchers aimed to clarify the often-conflicting narratives surrounding this popular hobby
Latest Podcast
The science behind successful start-ups
Fabian Braesemann and Paul McCarthy discuss the impact of founder personalities on startup success, how a predictive model outperforms industry standards to predict company success, and what factors can help us predict which startups will succeed.
