Computer Game Playing in Early Adolescence

Home computer game playing appears to be one of the social and leisure phenomena of the nineties, yet there is still little known about the acquisition, development, and maintenance of computer game playing among children and adolescents. A survey of 147 eleven-year-old computer game players attending a summer camp revealed that their main reasons for playing were for fun, for a challenge, because there was nothing else to do, and because their friends did. Males played computer games significantly more regularly than did females and were significantly more likely to play sports simulation games and violent games. Females were found to play platform games and puzzlers significantly more than did males. It is suggested that computer game playing for most children is a fairly absorbing and harmless activity but that, for a small minority of children, it may be problematic.