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 language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 680-697 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| Journal | Journal of Research on Adolescence |
| Volume | 28 |
| Issue number | 3 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 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