Electronic Gaming and Psychosocial Adjustment

BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The rise of electronic games has driven both concerns and hopes regarding their potential to influence young people. Existing research identifies a series of isolated positive and negative effects, yet no research to date has examined the balance of these potential effects in a representative sample of children and adolescents. The objective of this study was to explore how time spent playing electronic games accounts for significant variation in positive and negative psychosocial adjustment using a representative cohort of children aged 10 to 15 years. METHODS: A large sample of children and adolescents aged 10 to 15 years completed assessments of psychosocial adjustment and reported typical daily hours spent playing electronic games. Relations between different levels of engagement and indicators of positive and negative psychosocial adjustment were examined, controlling for participant age and gender and weighted for population representativeness. RESULTS: Low levels (<1 hour daily) as well as high levels (>3 hours daily) of game engagement was linked to key indicators of psychosocial adjustment. Low engagement was associated with higher life satisfaction and prosocial behavior and lower externalizing and internalizing problems, whereas the opposite was found for high levels of play. No effects were observed for moderate play levels when compared with non-players. CONCLUSIONS: The links between different levels of electronic game engagement and psychosocial adjustment were small (<1.6% of variance) yet statistically significant. Games consistently but not robustly associated with children’s adjustment in both positive and negative ways, findings that inform policy-making as well as future avenues for research in the area.

[1]  Richard J. Davidson,et al.  Brain training: Games to do you good , 2013, Nature.

[2]  Alexander von Eye,et al.  Information technology use and creativity: Findings from the Children and Technology Project , 2012, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[3]  Peter Fischer,et al.  Bulletin Personality and Social Psychology the Racing-game Effect: Why Do Video Racing Games Increase Risk-taking Inclinations? on Behalf Of: Society for Personality and Social Psychology the Racing-game Effect: Why Do Video Racing Games Increase Risk-taking Inclinations? 1396 Personality and Social , 2022 .

[4]  C. Anderson,et al.  The Impact of violent video games : an overview , 2012 .

[5]  Micah O. Mazurek,et al.  Video Game Use in Boys With Autism Spectrum Disorder, ADHD, or Typical Development , 2013, Pediatrics.

[6]  Johannes Breuer,et al.  Press CRTT to measure aggressive behavior: the unstandardized use of the competitive reaction time task in aggression research. , 2014, Psychological assessment.

[7]  M. Eastin.  The Influence of Competitive and Cooperative Group Game Play on State Hostility , 2007 .

[8]  Daniel L. King,et al.  Video Game Structural Characteristics: A New Psychological Taxonomy , 2009, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.

[9]  C. Ferguson,et al.  Paradigm change in aggression research: The time has come to retire the General Aggression Model , 2012 .

[10]  Victor C Strasburger,et al.  Children, Adolescents, and the Media , 2002, Clinical pediatrics.

[11]  D. Lamping,et al.  When to Use Broader Internalising and Externalising Subscales Instead of the Hypothesised Five Subscales on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ): Data from British Parents, Teachers and Children , 2010, Journal of abnormal child psychology.

[12]  Nicholas McGuigan,et al.  From digital natives to digital wisdom: Hopeful essays for 21st century learning , 2012 .

[13]  Megan A. Moreno,et al.  Children, Adolescents, and the Media , 2013, Pediatrics.

[14]  C. Ferguson,et al.  Twenty-Five Years of Research on Violence in Digital Games and Aggression Empirical Evidence, Perspectives, and a Debate Gone Astray , 2014 .

[15]  A. Cherlin,et al.  Family Instability and Child Well-Being , 2007, American sociological review.

[16]  Andrew K. Przybylski,et al.  A Motivational Model of Video Game Engagement , 2010 .

[17]  Mark D. Griffiths,et al.  Excessive Computer Game Playing: Evidence for Addiction and Aggression? , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[18]  Andrew K. Przybylski.  Scholars’ Open Statement to the APA Task Force on Violent Media , 2016 .

[19]  J. McGonigal.  Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World , 2011 .

[20]  David R. Ewoldsen,et al.  Effect of Playing Violent Video Games Cooperatively or Competitively on Subsequent Cooperative Behavior , 2012, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[21]  Raymond W. Preiss,et al.  Mass Media Effects Research , 2006 .

[22]  R. Goodman.  The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: a research note. , 1997, Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines.

[23]  George Comstock,et al.  Adolescents And The Media , 1993 .

[24]  R. Larson.  How U.S. Children and Adolescents Spend Time: What It Does (and Doesn't) Tell Us About Their Development , 2001 .

[25]  C. Ferguson,et al.  Friends, fun, frustration and fantasy: Child motivations for video game play , 2013 .

[26]  D. Bavelier,et al.  Neural bases of selective attention in action video game players , 2012, Vision Research.

[27]  Paul J. C. Adachi,et al.  The Effect of Video Game Competition and Violence on Aggressive Behavior: Which Characteristic Has the Greatest Influence? , 2011 .

[28]  Aric Sigman.  Time for a view on screen time , 2012, Archives of Disease in Childhood.

[29]  Trudi Schoop,et al.  Motion and Emotion , 2000 .

[30]  Nicole C. Krämer,et al.  Entertaining Media Use and the Satisfaction of Recovery Needs: Recovery Outcomes Associated With the Use of Interactive and Noninteractive Entertaining Media , 2011 .

[31]  B. Fauth,et al.  Young children's well-being , 2009 .

[32]  Deborah I Thompson,et al.  Playing for real: video games and stories for health-related behavior change. , 2008, American journal of preventive medicine.