A decades-spanning analysis reveals that children who game frequently before age 6 may be more likely to report problematic gaming symptoms as adults, offering new clues about when gaming habits begin to shape long-term behavior.
Study: Is early childhood exposure a key predictor of adulthood problematic gaming? Image credit: adriaticfoto/Shuterstock.com#
Early-life frequent video gaming may be associated with higher symptom severity in adulthood, as reported in a new study published in PLOS ONE.
Can early gaming shape adult behaviors?
Internet gaming disorder is a condition characterized by an obsession with video games to an extent that can cause distress and functional impairments. The most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V-TR) has included this disorder under the section “Conditions for Further Study”.
Like substance-related disorder, the age of onset of internet gaming disorder may potentially influence the level of addiction in adulthood. However, the extent to which internet gaming disorder resembles substance use disorder is controversial. Researchers also continue to debate whether problematic gaming represents a distinct disorder or may sometimes reflect underlying mental health conditions.
In substance use disorder, the earliest age of exposure has been found to be associated with adult addictive and psychiatric consequences. Examining the age of onset is particularly relevant for internet gaming disorder, as people usually start playing video games at a much younger age compared to when they start using illicit substances like drugs.
Given that studies characterizing video game engagement throughout childhood and adolescence, and its impact on adulthood symptom severity, are largely unavailable, researchers at the University of Western Ontario investigated whether frequent video gaming during childhood is associated with problematic gaming behavior in adulthood.
The researchers developed the Lifetime Video Game Usage Scale (LVUS) to assess video game engagement from preschool to the present. They applied growth mixture modeling to identify distinct subpopulations within the study population based on longitudinal gaming trajectories measured by LVUS.
Four distinct gaming trajectories
The researchers identified a 4-class model of video game engagement during childhood and adolescence that differentially predicted current internet gaming disorder scores.
Among identified groups, the ‘consistently high group’, reflecting high levels of gaming during childhood and adolescence, exhibited higher internet gaming disorder symptoms than the ‘low escalating group' and ‘rapidly escalating group’, which respectively represented low gaming during early life stages and low gaming during preschool, followed by high gaming.
However, the ‘consistently high group’ did not exhibit higher symptom levels than the ‘moderate gaming group’, the only other group with significant preschool gaming.
The researchers further analyzed these findings using appropriate statistical methods and found that video game exposure during preschool and high school is significantly associated with higher internet gaming disorder symptoms in adulthood, with preschool gaming being the strongest predictor of symptom severity.
Early gaming may signal future vulnerability
The study identifies childhood (preschool) and adolescence (high school) as the life stages most strongly associated with later problematic gaming symptoms. Gaming engagement during these periods was associated with higher levels of problematic gaming behavior in adulthood. The study also finds that online gaming is a stronger predictor of problematic behaviors than offline gaming.
Notably, the study findings reveal that the preschool years were the life stage most strongly associated with adult problematic gaming symptoms. However, the researchers mentioned that certain environmental risk factors, such as poor family environment or limited parental supervision, may influence the observed associations. Further research is needed to explore the impact of potential environmental risk factors on childhood gaming behaviors.
The study also identifies adolescence, or the high school years, as the second developmental period most strongly associated with adult internet gaming disorder symptoms. Adolescence is not only characterized as a time of increased autonomy but also a period of underdeveloped inhibitory control that modulates addictive behaviors. It is therefore possible that frequent gaming during this period, when inhibitory control is underdeveloped, could lead to pathological reward learning, which extends into adulthood.
The study finds online gaming to be more strongly associated with internet gaming disorder symptoms than offline gaming. However, offline gaming has also been identified as a significant predictor. These findings support the current conceptualization of “Gaming Disorder” in the International Classification of Diseases, which includes both online and offline gaming as problematic gaming behaviors and includes specifiers for ‘predominately online’ or ‘predominately offline’ gaming.
The social context of gaming is another potential predictor, as observed in the study. Gaming with others, but not gaming alone, has been identified as a significant predictor of higher internet gaming disorder symptoms. Gaming with strangers, however, has shown a stronger association with problematic gaming behavior than gaming with people known in real life. These findings suggest that problematic gamers may replace real-life relationships with online relationships and that a lack of offline social support may be a more important contributing factor than online gaming.
The researchers noted that the statistical models explained only a modest proportion of the variation in adult internet gaming disorder symptoms, suggesting that many other factors likely contribute to problematic gaming behaviors. They also noted that the study's retrospective, cross-sectional design cannot establish causation and that unmeasured environmental and individual factors may contribute to the observed associations.
Overall, the study findings may inform caregivers and pediatric guidelines regarding when and how video game play should be introduced among children and adolescents. The researchers highlight the need for more studies to understand how problematic gaming may emerge through interactions between developmental exposure, pre-existing mental health issues, home environmental factors, and individual traits.
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