RESEARCH NOTE
Does Family Game Night Bring a Family Closer?
Nobody has tested it. We found no study that looks at family board game nights on their own and measures whether the family ends up closer.
The honest answer
We looked for a peer-reviewed study that isolates family board game nights and measures family closeness as the result. We did not find one. That is a statement about our search, not proof that none exists.
So anyone who tells you research proves game night brings families closer is ahead of the evidence.
Where board games do appear
Board games show up in the research as an example, not as the subject.
- In the most used framework for family leisure, "playing board games" is listed as one example of everyday family time, next to watching television together, playing in the yard, shooting baskets in the driveway and gardening (Zabriskie and McCormick, Family Relations, 2001).
- A study of fathers and teenagers in 647 US families names "playing board games and video games together" among the regular home activities behind its main result. We read the summary of this study, not the full paper (Leisure Sciences, 2012).
In both, games are one item in a group. Neither study separates them from the rest.
So what is the evidence for game night?
It is the evidence for everyday family time in general, and no more specific than that.
That evidence says three things.
- Families who do more together rate their family life higher, by a small margin. Across 23 studies the link is r = .27, which accounts for about 7% of the differences between families (Hodge and colleagues, 2017).
- The everyday kind of time shows the steadier link. In several studies, ordinary time at home was tied to closeness more consistently than trips and special outings were.
- None of it shows cause. These are surveys taken once. A family that already gets along is more likely to sit down to a game.
Game night is a good example of everyday time: it is cheap, it is at home, it repeats. That makes it a reasonable bet. It does not make it a tested one.
The statistic you may have seen
A figure gets passed around that 96% of families who play games together feel closer. Search results trace it to a survey by a toy company. We could not find a release, a sample size or a method behind it, so we do not cite it as research.
Surveys paid for by companies that sell games usually have no comparison group. They ask people who play whether they feel close. They do not ask families who do not play, so they cannot show that the playing made a difference.
We publish play ideas, so we have the same interest in a cheerful answer. That is a reason to be careful with the claim, not a reason to repeat it.
Do video games count?
Two studies have looked at parents and teenagers playing video games together. Both are surveys taken once, both come from the same university, and we read the summaries only.
- Among 287 teenagers, playing with a parent was "marginally related to parent-child connectedness for girls." Nothing was reported for boys (Journal of Adolescent Health, 2011).
- Among 453 teenagers, playing video games together and watching television and movies together "were associated with higher levels of family connection." Time on social networking sites went with lower connection, "at least from the adolescent's perspective" (Family Relations, 2012).
That is thin, and it points the same way as the rest: shared time goes with feeling connected, and nobody has shown which causes which.
What would settle it
A study that assigned some families to a regular game night and others to carry on as usual, then compared them months later. Nobody has run it. Across four leisure journals from 1990 to 2012, one article out of 181 on family leisure used an experiment (Journal of Leisure Research, 2015).
If you want to try it anyway
There is no evidence that it hurts, and one finding is worth keeping in mind. In a study of 192 families, shared time looked protective for teenagers "when chosen by family members but not when it represents a default use of time." We read the summary of that study, not the full paper (Journal of Marriage and Family, 2004).
In other words, a game people want to play is a different thing from a game people were told to show up for.
The full picture
This page covers one question. The whole verdict on the saying, with its history and every source, is in our research paper: A family that plays together stays together: is it true?