Developmental Links Between Gaming and Depressive Symptoms

Jakub Mikuška, Alexander T. Vazsonyi

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

11 Scopus citations

Abstract

The current longitudinal study tested the reciprocal relationships between video game play and depressive symptoms among 9,421 adolescents from the Add Health (Mage = 16.15 years, SD = 1.64, 55% female), over 11 years (Waves 2, 3, and 4), ages 16 to 27. Based on structural equation modeling as well as latent growth models, findings indicated that (1) excessive gaming was largely transient over time, from adolescence to early adulthood; (2) excessive gaming predicted increases in depressive symptoms; and (3) in turn, depressive symptoms predicted decreases in gaming over time. Multigroup model tests by sex provided additional evidence that longitudinal relationships from excessive gaming to depressive symptoms were supported for male, but not for female youth.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)680-697
Number of pages18
JournalJournal of Research on Adolescence
Volume28
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Sep 2018

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research uses data from Add Health, a program project directed by Kathleen Mullan Harris and designed by J. Richard Udry, Peter S. Bearman, and Kathleen Mullan Harris at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and funded by grant P01-HD31921 from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, with cooperative funding from 23 other federal agencies and foundations. Special acknowledgment is due Ronald R. Rindfuss and Barbara Entwisle for assistance in the original design. Information on how to obtain the Add Health data files is available on the Add Health website (http://www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 Society for Research on Adolescence

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Cultural Studies
  • Developmental and Educational Psychology
  • Social Sciences (miscellaneous)
  • Behavioral Neuroscience

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