Minors are less likely to overindulge in gaming when their parents have a higher understanding of games and set clear usage guidelines. (Image courtesy of Yonhap)
SEOUL, Feb. 29 (Korea Bizwire) – A recent report by the Korea Creative Content Agency has revealed that minors are less likely to overindulge in gaming when their parents have a higher understanding of games and set clear usage guidelines.
The findings, detailed in the “2023 Comprehensive Survey on Children and Adolescents’ Gaming Behavior,” were based on an analysis of gaming habits and types among 100,000 youths from fourth grade of elementary school to the final year of high school, along with 30,000 younger children and their parents.
The survey categorized children and adolescents who play games into three groups: a problematic gaming group, negatively impacted by excessive gaming; a general user group; and an adaptive gaming group, who actively engage in gaming but are able to self-regulate and experience positive effects.
Among teenagers, 71% were identified as general users, 3.1% as problematic users, 12.4% as adaptive users, and 13.5% did not engage in gaming. For younger children, the breakdown was 3.2% problematic users, 66.8% general users, 4.9% adaptive users, and 25.1% non-users.
Parental awareness, dialogue, understanding, and the provision of rules regarding gaming significantly influenced the behavior of their children.
Among the adaptive gaming group of teenagers, 34.1% reported having effective communication with their parents about gaming, compared to 29.8% in the problematic group and 15.3% in the general user group.
Additionally, 63% of teenagers in the adaptive gaming group said their parents set clear rules about gaming, whereas only 48.7% of the problematic group and 40.9% of the general user group reported the same. Similar trends were observed among parents of second and third graders.
A significant 63.9% of parents in the adaptive gaming group felt they communicated well with their children about gaming, in stark contrast to 32.6% of the general user group and 23.9% of the problematic gaming group.
Moreover, 89.6% of parents in the adaptive group confirmed setting clear gaming rules, a rate much higher than that of the general user (45.3%) and problematic user (26.1%) groups.
The report cautions against the potential negative impacts of forbidding gaming or enforcing control in an authoritarian manner without sufficient dialogue, which could exacerbate gaming-related issues.
It advocates for regular conversations between parents and children and the establishment of clear guidelines to regulate gaming, emphasizing the need for educative approaches to foster a healthy gaming environment.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
