Video game playing among preschoolers: prevalence and home environment in three provinces from Turkey

ABSTRACT

We aimed to investigate the video game habits and their relationship with home environment in children 2–5 years in Turkey. A structured questionnaire about the child’s demographic, screen, and video gaming characteristics was completed by parents in five health centers from three provinces. One-quarter of 1245 preschoolers were found to play video games. The prevalence of playing video games was higher in older age, male gender, low parental education, families with 3 or more children, having a game console, computers and tablets at home, child’s screen time of more than 2 hours per day, child’s non-compliance with the parental screen rules, and presence of someone else playing videogame at home. Of the parents, 54.5% did not know the name of the video game the child was playing. Parents should be counseled about supervising on their children’s video game playing habits and selection of well-designed games with the right content.

KEYWORDS:

• Children
• digital games
• devices
• media
• parental rules
• preschool
• screen time
• video game

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to all volunteers for participating in this study.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.

Authors’ Contributions

SSY, KY contributed to the conception or design of the work. NC, MEN, AO, DY, OT, SC contributed to the acquisition of data. SSY contributed to the analysis and interpretation of data for the work. SSY, NC, MEN prepared the manuscript. All gave final approval and agree to be accountable for all aspects of work ensuring integrity and accuracy.

Availability of data and materials

For access to the files, please send an e-mail request to [email protected].

Ethical approval

Ethics Board of Non-Interventional Clinical Research from Hacettepe University approved the protocol. All procedures in the study complied with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Informed Consent was obtained from the mothers included in the study.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by authors. There was no financial support from any institution.