Video games have become an inevitable facet of children’s lives with approximately 97% playing at least one hour per day (Lenhart, Kahne, Middaugh, Macgill, Evans, & Vitak, 2008). In contrast to tradition forms of play, considered by leading psychologists as having important socio-emotional benefits, limited research has investigated how video game playing can benefit children’s emotion regulation skills (Hromek & Roffey, 2009). Instead, the preponderance of research on gaming’s influence on emotion regulation skills has focused on whether playing violent video games promotes aggressive thinking and behavior. For example, a recent meta-analysis identified 101 studies that investigated the effects of playing (violent) video games on children’s and adolescents’ psychosocial health (Ferguson, 2015); of these, fewer than 10 assessed the relation between gaming and children’s peer relationships (e.g. Przybylski, 2014). Furthermore, despite researchers arguing that children may be more prone to the long-term effects of gaming than adults (Bushman & Huesmann, 2006), and despite the trend of children picking up video games at an increasingly younger age (Lenhart et al., 2008), these studies have tended to recruit predominantly adolescent samples. While approximately 60 studies included children 12 years or younger, the mean age in nearly 40 of these samples was 13 or older. As a result, pre-adolescent children are underrepresented in gaming research. Given these and other methodological shortcomings, this project was designed to address the lack of research where (a) gaming’s role in normative development (b) among pre-adolescent children is studied (c) longitudinally and (d) using multiple reporters. These studies also (e) explored the potential bidirectionality between gaming behaviors and psychosocial health and (f) simultaneously investigated the influences of cooperative and competitive gaming. Our outcomes indicated that among children, the risks of gaming are likely low, whereas there may be psychosocial benefits, particularly when gaming is performed with peers.
Gaming and Children's Psycho-Social Development
Despite widespread claims that video gaming is harmful for children's social and emotional development, hardly any research has tracked children over time to verify these claims. Moreover, such claims run contrary to the importance which psychologists have given to play. This project aimed to address these matters.
Children who regularly game
Competitive gaming among boys in our sample
Competitive gaming among girls in our sample
Results
Video games have long been a source of social concern, and such concern seem magnified when considering gaming’s presumed negative influence on children. However, put into historical perspective, such presumptions may be a product of how foreign video gaming seems to members of the older generation. That is, like film and television before it, gaming may in large part evoke mass skepticism largely because it is a new form of popular media. As Przybylski’s research demonstrates, negative attitudes towards video games may be linked to one’s level of experience with video games (2013). Given this perspective and these findings, the social concern surrounding video games may therefore reflect a “moral panic” (Ferguson, 2008; 2011) more than the objective presence of danger.
This conclusion seems warranted given the findings of this project. Gaming was ubiquitous among children in these studies, and gaming frequency was associated with little to no detrimental outcomes. Instead, concern regarding gaming’s negative influence may be warranted in cases where children are given free rein to play as often and as aggressively as they want. Such children may be at risk for playing games that are inappropriate for their developmental stage. These studies therefore seem to indicate that unless left greatly unfettered, gaming is a healthy fit in children’s normative psychosocial development.
Publications
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The Benefits of Playing Video Games
Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. C. (2014). American Psychologist, 69, 66-78.
Author: Isabela Granic
Upload date: 01-17-2014
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Video Gaming and Children’s Psychosocial Wellbeing: A Longitudinal Study
Lobel, A., Engels, R. C.M.E., Stone, L. L., Burk, W., & Granic, I. (2017). 46, 884-897.
Author: Adam Lobel
Upload date: 02-21-2017
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Game on: The relation between gaming & emotion regulation development [Doctoral Dissertation]
A. Lobel (2017). Game on: The relation between gaming & emotion regulation development. Doctoral Thesis. Radboud University.
Author: Adam Lobel
Upload date: 01-18-2017
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Designing and Utilizing Biofeedback Games for Emotion Regulation: The Case of Nevermind
Lobel, A., Gotsis, M., Reynolds, E., Annetta, M., Engels, R. C.M.E., & Granic, I. (2016). CHI'16 Extended Abstracts, May 07-12, 2016, San Jose, CA, USA
Author: Adam Lobel
Upload date: 05-07-2016
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Associations between Children's Video Game Playing and Psychosocial Health: Information from Both Parent and Child Reports
Lobel, A., Granic, I., Stone, L. L., & Engels, R. C.M.E. (2014). Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17, 639-643
Author: Adam Lobel
Upload date: 10-01-2014
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Stressful Gaming, Interoceptive Awareness, and Emotion Regulation Tendencies: A Novel Approach
Lobel, A., Granic, I., & Engels, R. C. (2014). Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17, 222-227.
Author: Adam Lobel
Upload date: 04-03-2014
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The Sims: A Social Improvement Mechanism for Adolescents
Lobel, A., Engels, R., Tuijnman, A., de Valk, T., & Granic, I. (2013, April). Poster presented at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Seattle, WA.
Author: Adam Lobel
Upload date: 04-15-2013
Project team
User Research Analyst at Ubisoft Montréal. My favorite games tell emotionally rich stories and challenge me to think differently
User Research Analyst
Professor and Chair of the Developmental Psychopathology department in the Behavioural Science Institute; writer; voracious podcast consumer; mother of two upstanding little gamers
Professor at McMaster's University & Co-founder of PlayNice Interactive
Rutger Engels
CEO at Trimbos Institute / Professor Developmental Psychopathology Utrecht University
William Burk
Assistant Professor
Lisanne Stone
Senior Researcher at Centre for Anxiety Disorders