When he’s live-streaming his gaming activity online, Shaun “AussieAntics” Cochrane isn’t concerned about the size of the audience — or for that matter, whether anyone is watching at all. From his perspective, it’s like “having a conversation as if a thousand people are listening, and eventually, there might be.”
During “Gaming, Streaming, and Mental Health: Impact on Youth,” a panel discussion held at the TwitchCon gaming convention in San Diego last month, AussieAntics and several other leading gamers shared their unique mental health journeys and particularly, how live-streaming offers them a key avenue for community-building and interpersonal connection.
AussieAntics explained that he uses in-game chat functions because “just having a friendly voice in the background, that is enough to help a lot of people. You can make those connections that you might not have in your life otherwise.”
San Diego had last hosted TwitchCon in 2022, and the convention will now remain in the city for the next five years. For the second time at TwitchCon, the Ruderman Family Foundation — a global leader in working to end the stigma associated with mental health and to expand access to mental health resources across myriad sectors — organized a panel discussion on the mental health implications of gaming.