A Brief Study on Excessive Online Game Playing Among Older Adults

Abstract

Recently, there have been increasing games designed for older adults and growing concerns about older people’s excessive online gaming. Since games require a high degree of commitment and time investment from the players to the detriment of occupational, social, and other recreational activities and relations, a few factors have been linked to excessive online gaming in older adults. We interviewed and surveyed 6 current older game users regarding their gaming behavior, living conditions, problems as consequences of gaming, and game motivations. Results indicated that older game users are significantly more likely to experience gaming-related problems and that some types of gaming motivations significantly predicted excessive gaming. Low connectedness to family, having friends with habitual gaming behavior and living in rural areas also had discriminative effects on older game users’ investment. We also give some advice about game design for older adults. The findings support the necessity of offering guidelines for older users’ game design and emphasize the importance of preventing older adults from being damaged by games specially designed for them.