Games in everyday life: Profiles of adolescent digital gaming motives and well-being outcomes

Abstract

Especially since the 2010s, we have seen rapidly increasing discussion and research on the causal and correlational relations between digital gaming and different dimensions of well-being. This quantitative study presents a starting point of a four-year longitudinal study of the connections between adolescents’ gaming motives, gaming culture participation, and different aspects of psychosocial well-being (digital engagement, internalising symptoms, and academic adjustment) in a sample (N = 2053) of actively gaming Finnish 6th and 8th graders (ages 11–14). Results show three distinct player profiles differing in gaming motives and well-being correlates: escapist game players, achiever game players, and recreational game players. These provide a starting point for exploring both the interactions between gaming and well-being and the stability of gaming motives over time.