“No evidence that Chinese playtime mandates reduced heavy gaming”: Zendle et al. (2023) cannot support its claims due to a flawed design
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Karhulahti, Veli-Matti
Huntington-Klein, Nick
Ballou, Nick
Ropovik, Ivan
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Zendle et al. (2023) is a study of the impact of a Chinese policy restricting heavy videogame play among minors, finding that the policy had no effect. We show that, due to flaws in design, the study could not—even in principle—causally identify the minors-targeted policy effect, which it claims to have measured: the data lacked age information, thus rendering the study incapable of answering its own research question. This warrants a formal Expression of Concern under the COPE guidelines.
Context
The concerns were originally shared with the authors of the target study (Zendle et al. 2023) after the study’s publication. Because the authors dismissed these issues as inconsequential, we submitted them as a Matters Arising commentary to Nature Human Behaviour, which had published the study. However, the journal rejected the commentary, for which we submitted the work to the present journal for independent evaluation.
Context
The concerns were originally shared with the authors of the target study (Zendle et al. 2023) after the study’s publication. Because the authors dismissed these issues as inconsequential, we submitted them as a Matters Arising commentary to Nature Human Behaviour, which had published the study. However, the journal rejected the commentary, for which we submitted the work to the present journal for independent evaluation.
Editor(s)
Hassinger-Das, Brenna
Date Issued
2026-05-22
Date Acceptance
2026-04-11
Citation
Collabra: Psychology, 2026, 12 (1)
ISSN
2474-7394
Publisher
University of California Press
Journal / Book Title
Collabra: Psychology
Volume
12
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2026, by The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CCBY-4.0). View this license's legal deed at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0 and legal code at http://creativecom mons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode for more information.
License URL
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
161080
Date Publish Online
2026-05-22