Finnish young adolescents’ digital gaming and physical activity behaviour

Authors

  • Kwok Ng
  • Raine Koskimaa
  • Veli-Matti Karhulahti
  • Miikka Sokka
  • Pauliina Husu
  • Sami Kokko
  • Pasi Koski

Keywords:

sport simulations, children, first person shooter, sport club, survey, gender, esports

Abstract

In this cross-sectional study of Finnish adolescents, we investigated the rates of digital
game playing and examined the associations between playing a lot of digital games and
physical activity or sport club participation. A national representative sample (n =
1979) from Finland aged between 11y–15y old completed a self-report survey in 2022.
Analyses were carried out by chi-square tests and logistic regression analyses. More
males (74%) than females (26%) played digital games at least once a day. Playing at
least daily decreased from 11y (53%), 13y (30%) to 15y (17%) olds. Positive
associations were found with playing ball sport simulations and taking part in >4
days/week of physical activity or sport club participation (OR = 2.8, CI=1.7–4.4).
Negative associations were found between playing a lot of first-person shooter games
and sport club participation (OR = 0.6, CI=0.4–0.9). The results imply that
representational features in genres may be relevant for their links to physical activity.

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Published

2023-06-20

Bibtex

@Conference{digra1908, title ="Finnish young adolescents’ digital gaming and physical activity behaviour", year = "2023", author = "Ng, Kwok and Koskimaa, Raine and Karhulahti, Veli-Matti and Sokka, Miikka and Husu, Pauliina and Kokko, Sami and Koski, Pasi", publisher = "DiGRA", address = "Tampere", howpublished = "\url{https://dl.digra.org/index.php/dl/article/view/1908}", booktitle = "Conference Proceedings of DiGRA 2023 Conference: Limits and Margins of Games Settings"}

Proceedings

2023: Conference Proceedings of DiGRA 2023 Conference: Limits and Margins of Games Settings

Section

Papers

License

© Authors & Digital Games Research Association DiGRA. Personal and educational classroom use of this paper is
allowed, commercial use requires specific permission from the author.