In the past decade and a half, boys and young men aged 15 to 24 have more than doubled their average time spent in the game, at around 10 hours per week, according to a major survey.
Some teachers say that the game has disrupted attention in classrooms. Some economists have linked it to the decrease in working hours of young men. Many readers have told us that it was a main reason for the recent difficulties of boys and young men when we started our series on the subject in May.
However, video games also play an important role in the lives of young people. They have become a central means that young people socialize and provide them – in particular boys – a feeling of belonging.
The increase in the time that boys and young men spent playing games were the largest of all the activities measured by the American Time Use Survey, the large federal survey which asks each year a representative sample of thousands of people which they have done every minute of the day. (The category includes other types of games, such as cards, but the evidence suggests that these are mainly video games.)
This climb coincided with the technological changes that made games much more captivating. The game went from an activity carried out at home on a console or a computer also made on phones, anywhere and at any time.
While the parents have always worried about video games (especially if playing certain games causes violence, a connection that has not been proven), an urgent concern is now the time spent playing. As this has increased, fear is that video games have moved other activities in the lives of boys and young men – including physical activity, socialization in person, homework, jobs and sleep.
“The boys prefer to sit in front of Minecraft or Fortnite than to play outside,” said Susan Donohoe, primary school teacher in Portland, Maine. “They live a virtual life instead of a real external game and tasks, which develop social skills and responsibilities.”
However, researchers and adolescents themselves said that these virtual worlds were also a place to tie and tie real friendships.
“The nuance on boys and games is completely overlooked,” said Annie Maheux, assistant professor at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill who studies adolescents and digital media. “There is this social outlet for the game that a large part of the research has missed.”
Most teenagers play games with others, even if they are not physically with them, according to a national survey of 1,500 teenagers published last year by the Digital Wellness Lab of Boston Children’s Hospital.
The boys – who say that researchers say tend to prefer to do activities while they spend time with friends, more than having face -to -face conversations – are more likely than girls to play with others, the investigation revealed. They are more likely to speak with friends playing, as on FaceTime or Discord. And there is a social cost to abstain.
“This is an opportunity for boys to build their community and feel connected to others,” said Zhiying Yue, a scientist from Digital Wellness Lab who is also a player.
Beckon
The hobby is almost universal: 97% of adolescents play online games, according to a PEW Research Center survey among adolescents last year, just like 73% of girls. But boys spend much more time, the time survey showed – 10 hours per week in 2024, against two for girls.
Young people play video games to meet the basic development needs, said Dr. Yue: competence, developing mastery; autonomy, by creating avatars and exploring the worlds; And kinship, by connecting with peers. These are things that all adolescents are looking for, according to research. But boys and young men could look for them in the world online at a time when many say they feel drifting in the offline line.
The risk is that new technologies have rendered the games much more immersive and addictive, said Zach Rausch, chief researcher at Tech and Society Lab in Nyu
The major change, he said, came in the 2010s when many games became free to start playing, compared to the purchase in advance. This has changed the business models of companies – the objective has become to maximize the time spent for people and encourage small purchases in play.
Online games are constantly updated, reward daily recordings, sell limited edition virtual products and make real -time adjustments to keep the players hooked. Many never end, which makes them difficult to repress.
In 2015, these changes had reshaped the games – and the hours that boys and young men spent playing had been taken from the hours they spent for sport or spending time with friends or family, data for use data. (Many spend even more hours watching people play video games on YouTube or Twitch.)
Many of the best games played by young people, measured by Morning Consult, an investigation company, are crossed and multiplayer devices, and have free versions, including Roblox, Fortnite and Call of Duty.
“Millions of boys are in difficulty because they carry their pockets constant access to addictive products by design,” said Rausch. “I’m worried about boys, but my goal and my concerns are mainly aimed at predatory trade models that benefit from their vulnerabilities.”
Men are more sensitive to video game dependence than women, who are more likely to become dependent on social media, has shown research. One of the reasons is that men tend to be attracted by competition and risk -taking, said Dr. Marc Pottaza, who studies dependence on the Yale School of Medicine. Brain analyzes show that when men play video games, they have a stronger activation than women in the brain region involved in the treatment of rewards.
Amy Gifford, the mother of a teenager and a girl in Salem, in the Massachusetts, said that her daughter often met with friends, while her son’s friends are mainly online, which they find easier because it requires little planning.
“It is more addictive for boys and it is difficult for them to retire,” she said. “We literally sent our child knocking on the doors by asking other children to play or cycle, and they say no because they play.”
A social outlet, up to a point
The pandemic suralnate the time spent playing: men aged 15 to 24 spent 13 hours a week playing in 2022, against seven and a half in 2019. Many described it as a welcome way to connect during locking, and the evidence suggests that it mitigates stress and depression. Since then, time to play games has not returned to prepondemic levels.
“It was really very useful for me,” said Julian Minkoff, 19, to play Fortnite and Minecraft with friends during the pandemic. He still sometimes turns to video games as a way to spend time with friends in the dormitories of his college: “It’s really good for creating memories.”
While the Digital Wellness Lab survey revealed that solitary adolescents have known more, the game did not alleviate their loneliness – a model that was more pronounced for boys. This could be due to the fact that those who have weak social skills were more comfortable making friends online, but then obtained a practice to interact offline, the researchers said.
None of the researchers interviewed suggested that parents prohibit video games. Games are important for the way children are binding today, they said, and there are also advantages for cognitive and resolved problems, mood and self-esteem.
Instead, they recommended parents to play alongside children, monitor the time they spend and have conversations on risks – including dependence and exhibition to games, harassment, violence or extremist opinions. Some games are safer than others, they said.
The challenge, as with other types of screen time, is that it is up to individual parents to understand it. Aubrey Quinn, senior vice-president of the Software Association Entertainment, a group of the video game industry, said that its members offer many tools to make parents do it, including a rating system for games and various security checks, as for parents to limit screen time or block other players.
Some experts studying young people and technology have said it should be the responsibility of technological companies to block addictive or dangerous features for children in the first place.
“Parents’ borders have no chance against products designed to keep children hanging,” said Bennett Sippel, research assistant at Tech and Society Lab. “Platforms must assume responsibilities.”
