Evaluation of video game playing status in school-age children with various variables
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Turkish ORIGINAL ARTICLE
Archives of DOI: 10.5152/TurkArchPediatr.2020.20092
Pediatrics
Evaluation of video game playing status in school-age children with
various variables
Beril Aydın1 , Ayşe Oflu2 , Sıdıka Songül Yalçın3
1
Department of Pediatrics, Başkent University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey
2
Department of Pediatrics, Afyonkarahisar Health Sciences University, Afyonkarahisar, Turkey
3
Department of Social Pediatrics, Hacettepe University Faculty of Medicine, Ankara, Turkey
What is already known ABSTRACT
on this topic?
Objective: Excessive video game playing has several health implications on children. In this
• Video games are popular study, we evaluate the factors related to video game use in school-aged children.
among children as a form of
entertainment. The amount of Material and Methods: This cross-sectional descriptive study included 160 children aged 6–8 years
time spent on playing video who applied to outpatient clinics at the Department of Pediatrics at Başkent University Hospital.
games has increased rapidly in Each parent completed a structured questionnaire including demographic information, video game
the last decades. use, average daily screen time, and parental habits and concerns about their children’s screen use.
Results: The mean age of first video game use was (mean±SD) 2.8±1.1 years. The minimum age
for playing video games was 1 year. Male children spent more time playing video games. Both
What this study adds on parental age and maternal education level were higher in the group of video gamers com-
this topic? pared with non-gamers (pTurk Arch Pediatr 2021; 56(2): 136-40 Aydın et al. Video gaming in school-aged children
The popularity of video games among children as a form of en- and screen and video gaming habits of the children and their
tertainment and the amount of time spent playing video games families. The questionnaire included questions regarding de-
has increased rapidly. Technological advancements, urbaniza- mographic information (age, gender, parental level of educa-
tion, and insufficient playground areas are the main reasons for tion, number of children, and age of children); video game use;
the shift from traditional game activities toward digital games average daily screen use of children; and parental attitudes,
(9). With the enormous growth of the video games industry beliefs, opinions, and concerns regarding the use of screens
and video gaming, concerns regarding potentially problemat- among their children. Children with neurological problems or
ic gaming behaviors have arisen. Pathological video gaming disabilities were excluded from this study.
has been associated with numerous academic, social, psycho-
logical, and physiological problems, including shortened sleep Statistical analysis
duration, reduced sleep quality, increased attention problems, To ensure that the 80% confidence interval estimate of the pro-
diminished academic performance, increased caloric intake, portion of children video gaming is within 5% of the true pro-
and obesity (10). Increased playing of video games has also portion, a sample of size 165 is needed (OpenEpi).
impacted children’s development by reducing the quality of in-
Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistical Pack-
teractions between parents and children (11).
age for the Social Sciences (IBM SPSS Corp.; Armonk, NY, USA)
Despite the increase in playing video games among young 21.0 package program. The distributions of the continuous vari-
children, very limited research has been carried out to identify ables were evaluated by the Shapiro Wilk test and histograms.
factors associated with video gaming in school-aged children. Starting age for screen use was skewed, and Mann-Whitney
The mechanisms behind the development of early problemat- U test was applied to compare differences in groups. Other
ic gaming habits among vulnerable children are still unknown parameters were normally distributed, and groups were com-
while children at risk remain unidentified. Herein, we evaluate pared with Student’s t-test. Differences in proportions were an-
the frequency and patterns of screen use and video gaming alyzed with chi-square test. Values of pAydın et al. Video gaming in school-aged children Turk Arch Pediatr 2021; 56(2): 136-40
Table 2. Screen usage characteristics according to video game use
Characteristics Overall Video gamers Non-gamers P
N 160 93 67
Duration of children’ screen usea ≥2 hours 36.3 35.5 37.3 0.812
Limitation of parents for children’ screen usea Yes 62.5 63.4 61.2 0.772
Positive 48.8 43.0 56.7
Emotions with screen usea Negative 13.1 16.1 9.0 0.177
Self-immersion 38.1 40.9 34.3
Postpone own needs during screen usea Yes 43.8 46.2 40.3 0.455
Starting age for watching televisionb Months 13.2±8.7 (12.0) 12.0±7.6 (10.0) 14.8±9.8 (12.0) 0.036c
Room ownershipa Yes 80.6 80.6 80.6 0.994
Computer ownershipa Yes 86.9 92.5 79.1 0.013c
Tablet ownershipa Yes 80.6 87.1 71.6 0.015c
Smartphone ownershipa Yes 96.3 94.6 98.5 0.202
Game console ownershipa Yes 29.4 39.8 14.9 0.001d
Her/his room 35.0 32.3 38.8
Location of video game playinga Other rooms 56.3 57.0 55.2 0.468
Out of house 8.8 10.8 6.0
Video gamers at home Yes 56.9 76.3 29.9Turk Arch Pediatr 2021; 56(2): 136-40 Aydın et al. Video gaming in school-aged children
videos (16). Whereas 36.3% of children spent ≥2 hours/day on Informed Consent: Written informed consent was obtained from pa-
screen use in our study, 30.1% of children spent ≥2 hours/day tients’ parents who participated in this study.
on video gaming. Primary school attendance could explain the
Peer-review: Externally peer-reviewed.
limit in video playing time of children in our study. We also found
a statistically significant relationship between the presence of Author Contributions: Concept – B.A., A.O., S.S.Y.; Design – B.A., A.O.,
video gamers in the family or video gamer sister or brother at S.S.Y.; Supervision – B.A., A.O., S.S.Y.; Funding – B.A.; Materials – B.A.;
home and video game use of school-aged children. Data Collection and/or Processing – B.A.; Analysis and/or Interpreta-
tion – B.A., A.O., S.S.Y.; Literature Review – B.A.; Writing – B.A.; Critical
We also showed that maternal and paternal factors such as Review – A.O., S.S.Y.
age, education might influence the video game use of children.
Acknowledgement: This research received no specific grant from any
Parents were found to be older in school-aged children who
funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
play video game more than their peers. Older mothers and The study was approved by Baskent University Institutional Review
fathers may be less likely to reduce the screen access of their Board.
children than younger parents. It was reported that maternal
education was one of the predicted factors for frequent viewing Conflict of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to de-
clare.
of educational programs among children (17). In our study, we
found a statistically significant relationship between maternal Financial Disclosure: The authors declared that this study has received
education and video game use of children. Higher maternal no financial support.
education level increased the ratio of video game use among
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