Television, Video Game and Social Media Use Among Children with ASD and Typically Developing Siblings

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Abstract

This study examined the nature of television, video game, and social media use in children (ages 8-18) with autism spectrum disorders (ASD, n = 202) compared to typically developing siblings (TD, n = 179), and relative to other activities. Parents completed measures assessing children's screen-based and other extracurricular activities. Children with ASD spent approximately 62% more time watching television and playing video games than in all non-screen activities combined. Compared with TD siblings, children with ASD spent more hours per day playing video games (2.4 vs. 1.6 for boys, and 1.8 vs. 0.8 for girls), and had higher levels of problematic video game use. In contrast, children with ASD spent little time using social media or socially interactive video games.

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A ‘components’ model of addiction within a biopsychosocial framework

Mark Griffiths (2009)

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Pathological video-game use among youth ages 8 to 18: a national study.

Douglas A. Gentile (2009)

Researchers have studied whether some youth are "addicted" to video games, but previous studies have been based on regional convenience samples. Using a national sample, this study gathered information about video-gaming habits and parental involvement in gaming, to determine the percentage of youth who meet clinical-style criteria for pathological gaming. A Harris poll surveyed a randomly selected sample of 1,178 American youth ages 8 to 18. About 8% of video-game players in this sample exhibited pathological patterns of play. Several indicators documented convergent and divergent validity of the results: Pathological gamers spent twice as much time playing as nonpathological gamers and received poorer grades in school; pathological gaming also showed comorbidity with attention problems. Pathological status significantly predicted poorer school performance even after controlling for sex, age, and weekly amount of video-game play. These results confirm that pathological gaming can be measured reliably, that the construct demonstrates validity, and that it is not simply isomorphic with a high amount of play.