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Can Worried Parents Predict Effects of Video Games on Their Children? A Case-Control Study of Cognitive Abilities, Addiction Indicators and Wellbeing

Many parents worry over their children’s gaming habits, but to what extent do such worries match any detrimental effects of excessive gaming? We attempted to answer this question by comparing children of highly concerned parents with other adolescents of the same age. A cohort of parents who identif...

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Autores principales: Lieberoth, Andreas, Fiskaali, Anne
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7848848/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33536966
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586699
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author Lieberoth, Andreas
Fiskaali, Anne
author_facet Lieberoth, Andreas
Fiskaali, Anne
author_sort Lieberoth, Andreas
collection PubMed
description Many parents worry over their children’s gaming habits, but to what extent do such worries match any detrimental effects of excessive gaming? We attempted to answer this question by comparing children of highly concerned parents with other adolescents of the same age. A cohort of parents who identified as highly concerned over their children’s video game habits were recruited for a public study in collaboration with a national television network. Using an online experimental platform in conjunction with surveys of parents’ beliefs and attitudes, we compared their children to age-matched peers in an exploratory case-control study. The scores of children with highly concerned parents on tests of cognitive control (cued task-switching and Iowa Gambling Task) and psychological wellbeing (WHO-5) were statistically similar to controls, suggesting no selective cognitive or psychological detriments from gaming or otherwise in the cases with concerned parents. The case group, however, did spend more time gaming, and scored higher than controls on problem gaming indicators (Gaming Addiction Scale), which also correlated negatively with wellbeing. Within the case group, wellbeing effects seemed mainly to consist in issues of relaxation and sleep, and related to gaming addiction indicators of playing to forget real-world problems, and the feeling of neglecting non-gaming activities. Where most results of research staged for TV never get published, making it difficult to interpret both methods and results, this paper describes findings and participant recruitment in detail. The relationship between parental concern and children’s gaming is discussed, as is the merits and challenges of research conducted with media, such as TV programs and their recruited on-screen participants.
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spelling pubmed-78488482021-02-02 Can Worried Parents Predict Effects of Video Games on Their Children? A Case-Control Study of Cognitive Abilities, Addiction Indicators and Wellbeing Lieberoth, Andreas Fiskaali, Anne Front Psychol Psychology Many parents worry over their children’s gaming habits, but to what extent do such worries match any detrimental effects of excessive gaming? We attempted to answer this question by comparing children of highly concerned parents with other adolescents of the same age. A cohort of parents who identified as highly concerned over their children’s video game habits were recruited for a public study in collaboration with a national television network. Using an online experimental platform in conjunction with surveys of parents’ beliefs and attitudes, we compared their children to age-matched peers in an exploratory case-control study. The scores of children with highly concerned parents on tests of cognitive control (cued task-switching and Iowa Gambling Task) and psychological wellbeing (WHO-5) were statistically similar to controls, suggesting no selective cognitive or psychological detriments from gaming or otherwise in the cases with concerned parents. The case group, however, did spend more time gaming, and scored higher than controls on problem gaming indicators (Gaming Addiction Scale), which also correlated negatively with wellbeing. Within the case group, wellbeing effects seemed mainly to consist in issues of relaxation and sleep, and related to gaming addiction indicators of playing to forget real-world problems, and the feeling of neglecting non-gaming activities. Where most results of research staged for TV never get published, making it difficult to interpret both methods and results, this paper describes findings and participant recruitment in detail. The relationship between parental concern and children’s gaming is discussed, as is the merits and challenges of research conducted with media, such as TV programs and their recruited on-screen participants. Frontiers Media S.A. 2021-01-15 /pmc/articles/PMC7848848/ /pubmed/33536966 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586699 Text en Copyright © 2021 Lieberoth and Fiskaali. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
spellingShingle Psychology
Lieberoth, Andreas
Fiskaali, Anne
Can Worried Parents Predict Effects of Video Games on Their Children? A Case-Control Study of Cognitive Abilities, Addiction Indicators and Wellbeing
title Can Worried Parents Predict Effects of Video Games on Their Children? A Case-Control Study of Cognitive Abilities, Addiction Indicators and Wellbeing
title_full Can Worried Parents Predict Effects of Video Games on Their Children? A Case-Control Study of Cognitive Abilities, Addiction Indicators and Wellbeing
title_fullStr Can Worried Parents Predict Effects of Video Games on Their Children? A Case-Control Study of Cognitive Abilities, Addiction Indicators and Wellbeing
title_full_unstemmed Can Worried Parents Predict Effects of Video Games on Their Children? A Case-Control Study of Cognitive Abilities, Addiction Indicators and Wellbeing
title_short Can Worried Parents Predict Effects of Video Games on Their Children? A Case-Control Study of Cognitive Abilities, Addiction Indicators and Wellbeing
title_sort can worried parents predict effects of video games on their children? a case-control study of cognitive abilities, addiction indicators and wellbeing
topic Psychology
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7848848/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33536966
http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.586699
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