Abstract
Evidence has shown that video game play is significantly associated with children’s psychological well-being. However, the findings are mixed. To what extent that different levels of video game use are associated with different dimensions of psychosocial well-being is unclear among Chinese children. This study examined the association between video game time and children’s internalizing and externalizing problems as well as their prosocial behavior, and investigated the mediating role of self-esteem in these relationships. We conducted school-based surveys in M district of Shanghai among 1237 pairs of child-parent, using convenience sampling strategy. We employed the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaire and the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale to measure the psychosocial well-being and self-esteem of children, respectively. Mediation model with bootstrapping was used to estimate the magnitude and the respective bias-corrected 95% confidence intervals of the indirect effects of video game use on three outcomes through self-esteem. 47.9%, 8.1% and 6.1% children spent less than one hour, 1–2 h, and more than two hours per day on video game use respectively. Compared to children without playing video game, those spending more time on video game showed more externalizing problems, poorer prosocial behavior, and lower self-esteem. The mediating role of self-esteem was discovered between the relationship of moderate- and high-levels of video game use and children’s psychosocial well-being. This study underlined the importance of improving self-esteem of young video game players who suffered from psychosocial problems. More evidence-based studies are needed to provide empirical evidence for the introduction of more effective and targeted policies.
Highlights
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This study examined the association between video game use and children’s psychosocial well-being and the mediating role of self-esteem in these relationships.
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Self-esteem mediated the relationship between the moderate and higher levels of video game use and psychosocial well-being.
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Moderate and high levels of video game use were associated with more external problems and worse prosocial behavior.
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High self-esteem was significantly associated with improved psychosocial well-being.
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This study underlined the importance of improving self-esteem of young video game players who suffered from psychosocial problems.
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Data availability
The datasets generated and analyzed in the current study are not publicly available due to the requirements of the funders.
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This study was funded by The National Social Science Fund of China (20CSH054).
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XS conceived of the study, participated in its design, coordination and data collection and drafted the manuscript; XL conceived of the study, participated in its design, performed the statistical analysis and drafted the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
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Sun, X., Li, X. Video Game Time and Psychosocial Well-being in Chinese Children: the Mediating Role of Self-Esteem. J Child Fam Stud (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02834-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-024-02834-x