Living In an increasingly digital world community has gone by the wayside. Despite all the claims social media made about bringing us all together. It could not be farther from the truth. Anacdote from how friends people had. With corporate greed digital spaces have wormed closer and closer into our lives. Under the guise of frictionlessness they have taken more and more physical and social activities and turned them digital. This can be seen with ever generation. This lac of community and the change from physical to digital has changed the way people socialized. Eroding peoples social skills and bring a rise so anxiety. More than most I find myself to be a hermit. Living my life with 3 close friends, and spending the majority of my time reading books and spending time in contemplative silence. However, I do not find myself completely isolated. This miricale is due to a singular activivity. Dungeons and Dragons, (DnD). Dungeons and Dragons is a TTRPG, table top role playing game, where 3-8 players come together to create a story and adventure. One player takes on the role of DM, Dungeon Master, they are in charge of setting, ploy, antagonize, and side character. DM’s will often take on the roll of write and actor the portray the world that the game inhabits. While the DM will have to switch between various characters the rest of the players will take on the roles of the protaganists. Creating a character with backstories and goals. Despite playing in the world a make believe DnD, does two things to crub the action. The first are a long list of rules to demonstrate each characters capability, for example how quick each character cane more, whether or not they can fly or turn invisible. The last thing the game does is introduce chance. This last twist is what maeks Dungeons and Dragons truly unique. By adding in chance stories can be turned on their head and long shots made realities. While not many people actually play the game, it has been on the corner of the culture zitguist for as long as it has been around. In the 80’s* it was the focus of the ssatanic panic. Hearing of the basic description, fighting demons and slaying draongs to pull gold from the ground and enrich themselves, members of the extremeist right turned their headlights towards this harmless hobby. To create outrage they claimed this hobby would bring people to the darkness, ,that it would encourage people to pray to the devil and lurn them from the light fo there god. This is how quitea few people first heard of the hobby. However, DnD did not languish in negative association forever. In the last decade the game has had a huge resurgence. Many people were reintroduced to Dungeon’s and Dragons in the show Stranger Things. It has also been watched on websites like Twitch and Youtube, where amatures and professionals post videos of them playing the game online for views enjoyment. There is even an animated show on Amazon Prime called Critical Role that follows the tale of an actual game of Dungeons and Dragons. All these shows have brought DnD into the limelight, bring more and more people to the hobby. In this paper I will demonstrate how the game of Dungeons and Dragons is not only a fun game but also a great way to rebuild community and social skills. 

In Social Media Addiction and Poor Mental Health: Examining the Mediating Roles of Internet Addiction and Phubbing, Naif Ergün, Zafer Ozkan, and Mark D. Griffiths, professors of psychology and gaming examine the relationship between social media and poor mental health. This study was published in 2025. The research paper was written to explore the relationship between social media addiction, internet addiction, phubbing and various mental health issues: depression, anxiety and stress. Proven through a data centered viewpoint the professors conducted a study of 603 young adults to prove causation between these issues.   

It wasn’t to long ago that smart phones were new. The first real smart phone, the iphone, was only released a little over a decade ago, 2007. Yet the modern world feels impossible without them. What was once a luxury item only for the few has turned into a commonality. “The use of social media (SM), the internet, and smartphones have markedly increased in the past decade” (Ergün p 2). The use of the internet and the immediate access to it that smart phones allow have complete revolutionized the world that we will in. It is no wonder that they have become more and more common. However, this increased use and commonality has not come freely, it has an insidious cost. 

Smart phones have completely changed the way that we interact with each other and our sense of community. As we use smart phones more we come up with new ways to use them. Most often this is in the form of new apps but it also comes in the form of new behaviors. One such behavior is phubbing. “Phubbing is a relatively new phenomenon that researchers have been investigating since 2013.” (Ergün p 4). A combination of “phone” and “snubbing”. Phubbing is the act of looking at your phone instead of the people around you. This can often be seen at resonant or other social situations where people are looking at their phones instead of communicating with their group.  

The inclusion of social media and the digital creep that permeates are lives leaves us worse in its passing. Spending time on social media harms us, makes us feel worse about ourselves and destroys the communities we have. In their study Ergün found “that social media addiction was associated with poor mental health through two variables. Internet addiction and phubbing fully explained the association between social media addiction and stress” (Ergün p 13). Community is a natural state for us. The fantasy that digital community and connection can replace something real is just that a fantasy. Yet, everything digital is just so much more convent that we hold on to it, even if we know it hurts us. The solutions to this problem isn’t going to come from some new app or a new device. It going to be something physical, something like Dungeons and Dragons.  

In the video Escaping Prison with Dungeons & Dragons by Vice. Journalists follows the journey of two prisoners playing Dungeons and Dragons in and out of jail. Vice, a magazine focusing on lifestyle, arts, culture, and news stories, published this video in 2018. The video pushes the viewers to reimaging the role that games can play in our lives. Focusing on the story of two recently released convicts who tell their story of how games, including dungeons and dragons, helped them through their time incarcerated. Highlighting the differences in how people play inside and outside of jail to demonstrate what games offer doesn’t change drastically no matter one’s circumstance.  Joe Lasley, Department of Leadership and Organizational Studies, University of Southern, Maine Antonio Ruiz-Ezquerro, Educational Leadership and Policy Studies, Florida State University, and Amanda Giampetro, Department of Leadership and Organizational Studies, University of Southern Maine, wrote the paper Dungeons & Dragons: Unveiling the Narrative Power of a Popular Culture Phenomenon From Satanic Panic to Leadership Renaissance. Originally published in 2025 the paper focuses on the inherent ability Dungeons and Dragons has to teach its players, social and leadership skills. Published in the journal New Directions for Student Leadership, this paper takes an educational tone, breaking down every part of the game and how it shapes the enviroment and players into better situations for and into better leaders. 

Dungeons and Dragons is a game that connects people. Building bonds through communal story telling and shared experience. It can connect us when we are feeling alone. Allow us to face the things that we aren’t ready to face in our reality. It can provide just the right amount of distance. A Goldie locks zone, still close enough to feel the connect yet far enough that people aren’t stop by fear of vulnerability. “The game acts as a container for emotions, using the narrative to help players make sense of and manage their feelings. Dis-placement (transferring emotions onto characters or situations within the game) and immersion (deep engagement with the game setting) are techniques used to help players navigate and process these emotions.” (Lasley  p 3).  Dungeons and Dragons can put you into situations that you aren’t ready for in reality. Allows you to embody characters and try on different aspects, like different genders. Putting you in experiences outside your comfort zone to allow you to grow as a person. This vulnerability has fantastic benifits not only for your personal development but socially as well. Yet the vener of fantasy allows people to jump in without fear, even in places much more dangerous than a schoolyard. “When you’re gaming you’re definitely looking for a way to express yourself you know and you’re looking for a way to succeed” (Vice 9:23 – 9:42). Dungeons and dragons can be played by anyone anywhere. The only requirement is having the people willing to play. It is the perfect vehicle to help teens suffering from anxiety and depression. The theme of Dungeons and Dragons allows people to connect to the fantasy. With the modern infatuation with superheroes its easier than ever to convince someone to embody one for a few hours. Yet the whole time they believe they are just playing a game their social skills and sense of community are growing.  

Once people start playing Dungeons and Dragons it’s almost impossible not to develop socially. At its least introspective a game of Dungeons and Dragons still takes roughly 4 hours. Spending that much time with people builds community and social skills whether you want to or not and that’s just the beginning of what you can do. If you have the intention, the sky is the limit for your development. “It is the way that role-playing in D&D mimics the process of personal development in day-to-day life that lends itself to leadership development. More importantly, the act of role-playing in and of itself is a therapeutic tool for human development, and the relatedness of role-playing with a group can function as a developmental environment” (Lasley  p 2). Its a perfect environment to try on different acts, to put yourself into the shoes of others and inhabit them. To feel what it would be like to be another version of yourself, would you be happier? To gain a piece of insight by experiencing the world through someone else’s background and goals. It can expand your empathy in ways you can’t Imagin. “Bringing people together is what DnD is about it’s about culture it’s about camaraderie it’s about banding together to get the goal accomplished it’s not how you play the game it’s why you play the game” (Vice 0:19 – 0:37). This is the real meat of the issue. The world can feel so lonely. That connecting with others feels almost unique. To make something that is not solely yours but owned collectively. Dungeons and Dragons is unlike everything else, and all of its strengths are the very things people are missing.  

In conclusion, everyday the world seems to be a darker place. This effect is exacerbated in the youth, who sometimes affectionately call themselves doomers. One of the countless variables that has lead to this is social media. It been proven time and time again how dangerous it is. Yet the strangle hold it has on all of us is still ever-present. My hope is that I have shown you that Dungeons and Dragons could be a helpful tool to help mend the main wounds we have. From the mental illnesses on the rise, to the loss of community we all feel.   

Reference Page 

[1] Ergün N, et al. “Social Media Addiction and Poor Mental Health: Examining the Mediating Roles of Internet Addiction and Phubbing.” Psychological Reports, vol. 128, no. 2, Apr. 2025, pp. 723–43. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1177/00332941231166609. 

[2] VICE. (2018, January 17). Escaping Prison with Dungeons & Dragons. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_kDseTCNGyA 

[3] Lasley, J., Ruiz-Ezquerro, A. and Giampetro, A. (2025), Dungeons & Dragons: Unveiling the Narrative Power of a Popular Culture Phenomenon From Satanic Panic to Leadership Renaissance. New Dir Stud Lead., 2025: 53-60. https://doi-org.remote.baruch.cuny.edu/10.1002/yd.20657