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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Sports Act. Living
Sec. Physical Activity in the Prevention and Management of Disease
Volume 6 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fspor.2024.1520202
This article is part of the Research Topic Monitoring and Promoting Physical Exercise and Physical Performance in Esports Players View all 5 articles

Gameplay and Physical Activity Behaviors in Adult Video Game Players

Provisionally accepted
  • Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Introduction: Since the early 2000s, the video game industry has seen extraordinary booms in product development and market growth, with the total number of video game players globally reaching 2.69 billion by the end of 2020. Despite the rapid growth of the industry, there is little recent data investigating the time adult video game players spend sedentary playing video games and the time they spent engaged in physical activity. The purpose of this quantitative, cross-sectional, non-experimental survey study is to describe the frequency and duration of video game play and physical activity in adult video game players. Methods: Participants completed an online survey, evaluating their demographic and health history information, video game play, and physical activity behaviors. Results: The study used data from a total of 221 participants (Males = 153, Females = 68). The mean age of the participants was 27.29 (SD 7.27) years. Of the 221 participants, 145 identified as casual players, 50 amateurs, 24 semi-professionals, and 2 professionals. The participants spent over five days per week and an average of 26.56 hours per week playing video games. Personal computers were reported to have the longest duration of play of the four platforms investigated (17.6 hours per week). The total amount of time participants spent engaged in cumulative moderate-tovigorous physical activity (MVPA) was an average of 15.43 (SD 16.79) hours per week. The majority of this time was spent engaged in occupational physical activity (5.11 hours per week). Participants spent 2.39 hours per week engaged in leisure time MVPA. Conclusion: Our results indicate an increase in VG play compared to 2018, suggesting United States adult video game players may be more at risk for detrimental effects to their physical health. This could be attributed to the habits formed during the COVID-19 pandemic, the influences from video genre game play mechanics, and the social aspects of playing video games with friends. Future research should focus on developing research methodologies that will objectively measure adult video game player frequencies and durations in video game play alongside extensive observation of different video gameplay mechanic genres and their relationships with physical activity.

    Keywords: Exercise, sedentary behavior, physical health, Video Game Genres, Adult gamers

    Received: 30 Oct 2024; Accepted: 10 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Scoggins, Porter and Braun-Trocchio. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Haylei Scoggins, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, United States
    Robyn Braun-Trocchio, Texas Christian University, Fort Worth, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.