Long term effects of video and computer game heavy use on health, mental health and education outcomes among adolescents in the U.S.

Internet addiction;gaming addiction;heavy gaming;Internet gaming disorder;video and computer use;Adolescents;physical health;Body Mass Index (BMI);Obesity;general health;mental health;depression;substance use;conduct disorder;education outcomes;high school drop out;total years of education;longitudinal design;propensity score matching;Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5);Add Health

Liu, Chennan

关键词: Internet addiction;    gaming addiction;    heavy gaming;    Internet gaming disorder;    video and computer use;    Adolescents;    physical health;    Body Mass Index (BMI);    Obesity;    general health;    mental health;    depression;    substance use;    conduct disorder;    education outcomes;    high school drop out;    total years of education;    longitudinal design;    propensity score matching;    Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition (DSM-5);    Add Health;   

Others  :  https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/50742/Chennan_Liu.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y

美国|英语

来源: The Illinois Digital Environment for Access to Learning and Scholarship

【 摘 要 】

Video and computer gaming addiction, also called gaming disorder and pathological gaming, is an emerging behavioral problem for adolescents. Previous studies have investigated the associated negative outcomes of this putative mental health problem, such as academic failure, physical and mental health problems, but findings have been inconsistent and have methodological weaknesses.Most studies have been cross-sectional, which could not establish temporal order. Furthermore, the limited longitudinal studies found in this field failed to control for baseline health, mental health, academic achievement, gaming frequency and other confounding variables. Therefore, it is not known whether gaming addiction itself can cause long term negative consequences or whether gaming addiction is just associated with other problems.One of the main symptoms of gaming addiction is heavy gaming, defined by persistent and recurrent engagement in gaming for many hours. Even though some studies have investigated the association between heavy gaming and gaming addiction, there is no study focusing on how different cut-off points of heavy gaming predict long-term health, mental health and education outcomes differently. Therefore, it is unclear what cut points (i.e., number of hours of play) should be used to define heavy gaming. This study addresses the above gap by using a longitudinal design that tracked video and computer gaming from adolescence into young adulthood. Data analysis was performed using three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (1994-1995, 1996, 2001-2002), a nationally representative panel study. Heavy video and computer gaming was defined as at least 21 hours/week usage on video or computer gaming, with additional usage cut-off points recorded at >35, 42 and 56 hours. A propensity score matching (PSM) method, adding school fixed effect and sampling weight components, was used to create two equivalent groups using different cut-off points in Wave 2 based on 29 matching variables in Wave 1. Matching variables included: demographics, personal characteristics, parenting style, peer relationship, school attachment, community characteristics, as well as baseline conditions of health, mental health and education outcome variables. Then multiple regressions were used to predict Wave 3 (W3) health, mental health and education outcomes based on two equivalent groups created by PSM. Matched adolescent peers below each gaming usage cut-off point were compared to heavy users on W3 outcomes. All 29 matching variables were also included as controls. Conservative Bonferroni test were used in the above regression analysis.Results of fully adjusted multivariate analyses suggested that playing video and computer games 21 hours or more per week during adolescence was longitudinally associated with less likelihood of high school completion five years later (coef. =-.074, p