Prospective associations between media parenting practices and adolescent video game use

TL;DR

This study shows that how parents manage their own screen time and monitor their children's media use can influence adolescents' video gaming habits over time.

Contribution

The study provides new evidence on how specific media parenting practices prospectively affect adolescent video game use.

Findings

Higher parental screen time modeling and bedroom screen use are linked to increased odds of playing mature-rated games.

Parental monitoring and limiting screen time are associated with reduced total video game use and lower odds of playing mature-rated games.

Use of screens to control behavior correlates with greater total video game use in adolescents.

Abstract

Despite the rise of adolescent video gaming, evidence-based parenting guidelines and research on its specific behavioral impacts remain limited. This study evaluated whether media parenting practices are prospectively associated with video game use in adolescents 1 and 2 years later.

We analyzed 7407 adolescents (51.6% male, age: 12.9 ± 0.6 years) from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study (year 3: 2019–2021 to year 5: 2021–2023). Multiple mixed-effects ordinal logistic regression and generalized linear models assessed the associations between parent media practices (screen time modeling, mealtime screen use, bedroom screen use, use to control behavior, monitoring and limiting) and video game behaviors (mature-rated games, problematic use and weekend video game time) 1 and 2 years later, adjusting for covariates.

Higher parental screen time modeling, mealtime screen use and bedroom screen use were associated with higher odds of playing mature-rated video games, whereas higher parental monitoring of screen time and limiting screen time were associated with lower odds of playing mature-rated video games and less total video game use 1 and 2 years later. Higher mealtime screen use, bedroom screen use and use of screens to control behavior were associated with greater total video game use 1 and 2 years later.

This study demonstrates that certain media parenting practices can reduce adolescent video game use, while low parental involvement is linked to more problematic video game use behaviors. This study shows that parenting practices, including screen modeling, may influence adolescents’ video game behaviors.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12519-025-01009-y.

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