Decades of analysis reveals that children who play games frequently by the age of six are more likely to report problematic gaming symptoms as adults, providing new clues about when gaming habits begin to shape long-term behavior.
Study: Is childhood gameplay the main predictor of problematic gaming in adulthood? Image credit: adriaticfoto/Shuterstock.com#
Playing video games frequently during childhood may increase the severity of symptoms in adulthood, as reported in a new study published in . pro swan.
Can early games shape adult behavior?
Internet gaming disorder is a condition characterized by obsession with video games to a degree that can cause distress and impairment. The most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V-TR) lists this disorder in the “Conditions for Further Research” section.
As with substance-related disorders, the age of onset of Internet gaming disorder may influence the level of addiction in adulthood. However, the extent to which Internet gaming disorder resembles substance use disorder is debatable. Researchers also continue to debate whether problematic gaming represents a distinct disorder or may reflect an underlying mental health condition.
In substance use disorders, earliest age of exposure has been found to be associated with adult dependence and psychiatric consequences. Examining age of onset is particularly relevant for Internet gaming disorder because people typically start playing video games at a much younger age than they start using illicit substances such as opiates.
Given that little research is available characterizing video game engagement from childhood to adolescence, or the impact of video games on symptom severity in adulthood, researchers at the University of Western Ontario investigated whether frequent video game play in childhood was associated with problematic gaming behavior in adulthood.
Researchers developed the Lifetime Video Game Use Scale (LVUS) to assess engagement with video games from preschool to the present. They applied growth mixture modeling to identify distinct subpopulations within the study population based on longitudinal game trajectories measured by LVUS.
4 different game trajectories
Researchers identified a four-class model of childhood and adolescent video game participation that differentially predicted current Internet gaming disorder scores.
Among the identified groups, the ‘consistently high level group’, reflecting high levels of gaming during childhood and adolescence, showed higher symptoms of Internet gaming disorder than the ‘low escalation group’ and the ‘rapidly escalating group’, which represent less frequent gaming early in life, less frequent gaming during preschool, and more frequent gaming later in life, respectively.
However, the “consistently high group” did not show higher symptom levels than the “moderate gaming group,” the only other group that engaged in significant gaming during preschool.
The researchers further analyzed these results using appropriate statistical methods and found that exposure to video games during preschool and high school. Preschool gaming is significantly associated with the progression of Internet gaming disorder symptoms in adulthood. The most powerful predictor of symptom severity.
Early games may hint at future vulnerabilities
This study identifies childhood (preschool) and adolescence (high school) as the following periods: Life stage is most strongly associated with later problematic gaming symptoms. Gaming involvement during these periods was associated with higher levels of problem gaming behavior in adulthood. The study also found that online games were more powerful predictors of problematic behavior than offline games.
Notably, the results of this study reveal that the preschool years are the life stage most strongly associated with problematic gaming symptoms in adults. However, the researchers said certain environmental risk factors, such as poor home environments or limited parental supervision, may influence the observed associations. Further research is needed to investigate the influence of potential environmental risk factors on children’s gaming behavior.
The study also identified adolescence, or high school, as the second developmental period most strongly associated with adult Internet gaming disorder symptoms. Adolescence is characterized not only as a period of increasing autonomy but also as a period in which the inhibitory control that regulates addictive behavior is underdeveloped. Therefore, frequent gaming during this period, when inhibitory control is underdeveloped, may lead to pathological reward learning that persists into adulthood.
This study found that online gaming was more strongly associated with symptoms of Internet gaming disorder than offline gaming. However, offline gaming has also been identified as an important predictor. These findings support the current conceptualization of “gaming disorder” in the International Classification of Diseases, which includes both online and offline gaming as problematic gaming behavior and includes designators for “primarily online” or “primarily offline” gaming.
As observed in the study, the social context of the game is another potential predictor. Playing games with others, as opposed to playing games alone, has been identified as a highly predictive factor for symptoms of Internet gaming disorder. However, playing games with strangers shows a stronger association with problematic gaming behavior than playing games with people you know in real life. These findings suggest that problem gamers may replace real-life relationships with online ones, and that lack of offline social support may be a more important factor than online gaming.
The researchers noted that the statistical model only explains a small portion of the variation in symptoms of Internet gaming disorder in adults, suggesting that many other factors likely contribute to problematic gaming behavior. They also noted that the study’s retrospective, cross-sectional design precluded establishing causality, and that unmeasured environmental and personal factors may have contributed to the observed associations.
Overall, the findings could inform caregiver and pediatric guidelines on when and how to introduce video games to children and adolescents. The researchers highlight the need for further research to understand how problematic gaming emerges through interactions between developmental exposures, pre-existing mental health problems, home environmental factors, and individual characteristics.
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