Looks and Gaming: Who and Why?

Andy Chung (), Daniel S Hamermesh (), Carl Singleton, Zhengxin Wang () and Junsen Zhang ()
Additional contact information
Andy Chung: Department of Economics, University of Reading
Daniel S Hamermesh: University of Texas at Austin, IZA, and NBER
Zhengxin Wang: School of Economics, Zhejiang University of Finance and Economics
Junsen Zhang: School of Economics, Zhejiang University, Department of Economics, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, and IZA

No em-dp2024-04, Economics Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Reading

Abstract: We investigate the relationship between physical attractiveness and the time people devote to video/computer gaming. Average American teenagers spend 2.6% of their waking hours gaming, while for adults this figure is 2.7%. Using the American Add Health Study, we show that adults who are better-looking have more close friends. Arguably, gaming is costlier for them, and they thus engage in less of it. Physically attractive teens are less likely to engage in gaming at all, whereas unattractive teens who do game spend more time each week on it than other gamers. Attractive adults are also less likely than others to spend any time gaming; and if they do, they spend less time on it than less attractive adults. Using the longitudinal nature of the Add Health Study, we find supportive evidence that these relationships are causal for adults: good looks decrease gaming time, not vice-versa.

Keywords: physical attractiveness; beauty; time allocation; social activity; teenage behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J22 L82 L86 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 41 pages
Date: 2024-08-13
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hea and nep-lma
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://research.reading.ac.uk/economics/wp-conten ... 24/08/emdp202404.pdf

Related works:
Working Paper: Looks and Gaming: Who and Why? (2024)
Working Paper: Looks and Gaming: Who and Why? (2024)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:rdg:emxxdp:em-dp2024-04

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Economics Discussion Papers from Department of Economics, University of Reading Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Alexander Mihailov ().