Gaming among Children and Adolescents during the COVID-19 Lockdown: The Role of Parents in Time Spent on Video Games and Gaming Disorder Symptoms

Maria Anna Donati, Cristiana Alessia Guido, Giuliano De Meo, Alberto Spalice, Francesco Sanson, Carola Beccari and Caterina Primi
Additional contact information
Maria Anna Donati: NEUROFARBA Department, Psychology Section, University of Florence, 50135 Florence, Italy
Cristiana Alessia Guido: Department of Maternal Sciences, Child Neurology Division, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Giuliano De Meo: Department of Maternal Sciences, Child Neurology Division, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Alberto Spalice: Department of Maternal Sciences, Child Neurology Division, Sapienza University of Rome, 00185 Rome, Italy
Francesco Sanson: NEUROFARBA Department, Psychology Section, University of Florence, 50135 Florence, Italy
Carola Beccari: NEUROFARBA Department, Psychology Section, University of Florence, 50135 Florence, Italy
Caterina Primi: NEUROFARBA Department, Psychology Section, University of Florence, 50135 Florence, Italy

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 12, 1-19

Abstract: It is mainly children and adolescents who are involved in video gaming. The lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may have further increased their use of video games and, consequently, the risk of gaming disorder (GD) symptoms. However, currently, we do not have exhaustive knowledge of this issue. To fill this gap, the current study aims to analyze video gaming habits in children and adolescents during the lockdown, starting in March 2020 in Italy, the first European country affected by the pandemic. Specifically, we aim to understand how variables related to parents—for instance, knowledge of their offspring’s life, the monitoring of their video gaming habits, and parental use of video games—are related to their offspring’s time spent on video games and GD symptoms. A web-based survey involving parents ( n = 554, 79% mothers, mean age = 45.39) of 554 children and adolescents (73% males, mean age = 11.11) was utilized. The results showed that they were involved in video games, particularly boys and adolescents, with high rates of GD symptoms. The parents also spent a considerable amount of time playing video games. A path model that explained the mechanisms through which parental variables were related to their offspring’s time spent on video games and GD symptoms, controlling for gender and age, was verified. Overall, the findings indicate the importance of educating parents to behave effectively with respect to video games and monitor their offspring’s video gaming habits.

Keywords: children; adolescents; video gaming; gaming disorder; COVID-19; parents; path analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/12/6642/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/12/6642/ (text/html)

Related works:
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:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:12:p:6642-:d:578627

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().