Leveling Up? Video Game Play in Adolescence and the Transition into Adulthood

ABSTRACT

Most research on video games has examined short-term psychological consequences, leaving the long-term effect on social outcomes unclear. To address this limitation, this study utilized the life course perspective and tested whether video game play during adolescence lowers the chance of successful transition into adulthood. Using the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (N = 15,409), logistic regression models tested the association between video game play in adolescence and the chance of achieving six markers of adulthood in their 20’s and 30’s. Results showed that the association depends on the intensity of game play, gender, and the outcome under examination.

KEYWORDS:

• Video games
• transition into adulthood
• life course
• gender
• positive gaming engagement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Unfortunately, no question in Add Health asked about the genre, type, or Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating of games respondents played.

2. All respondents 18 years of age in Wave III were removed for this analysis because they could reasonably be in the process of completing high school, resulting in an approximately 1% sample loss. Respondents claiming completion at less than 10 years of age were also removed (N = 8).

3. Being “on time” could not reasonably be determined because a majority of respondents were too young in Wave III to have likely completed a college education (about 60% were age below 22). Timing was not asked in Wave IV.

4. With this variable, we sought to measure whether respondents voluntarily lived anywhere other than their parents’ homes. Those living in dormitories, apartments, and barracks counted as living away from their parents. Respondents who had moved away for involuntary reasons such as hospitalization, homelessness, and imprisonment were dropped from the analysis.

5. Having a nonresident child did not count as being a parent in the present analysis because it may not have involved the same degree of responsibilities as having a resident child and it indicated the respondent’s inability to maintain a stable relationship with a co-parent. This coding also excluded respondents who had a child but had lost custody, given them up for adoption, etc. because such a situation represented a failure to transition into adulthood. In contrast, we consider adoption to be signs of a successful transition.

6. We considered this model as supplemental for two major reasons: First, parental income had by far the largest factor of missing cases due to no response (nearly 2,000 respondents), resulting in a notably smaller operational sample when included. Second, the distribution of non-response to the income question was nonrandom, with the most disproportionate impact to black/African American individuals and Asian individuals.

7. Predicted probabilities were calculated for all dependent variables based on Model 4 of the regression models (In addition to supplemental Model 7 for employment, see Figure 2). Figures for each of the predicted probabilities not in the paper based on the gender and amount of video game play can be found in Appendix A.

8. See Appendix A.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Andrew Latinsky

Andrew Latinsky is a recent graduate of Florida State University and current research analyst for the Florida Department of Elder Affairs. His doctoral research investigated the impact of maternal age and race on the relative risks of fetal loss utilizing the weathering hypothesis. He takes a multidisciplinary approach using life course and feminist perspectives, with a focus on quantitative methods.

Koji Ueno

Koji Ueno is Professor of Sociology at Florida State University. He engages in both quantitative and qualitative research to examine the impact of sexual orientation on mental health, friendships, and status attainment by drawing on life course and social psychological perspectives. His work has been funded by National Science Foundation and Social Science Research Council and published in Social Problems, Social Forces, Journal of Health and Social Behavior, and Work and Occupations.