E-sports versus physical activity among adolescents

Abstract

Background: Material and methods: Results: Conclusions: ‪While physical activity is believed to be essential for a healthy lifestyle, younger generations seem to spend less time playing sports. On the other hand, in the past couple of years a new type of sports, e-sports has emerged. Though one cannot question that e-sports requires intense concentration and a lot of practice, whether it needs appropriate physical fitness is still debated. ‪A survey was conducted in Debrecen, in the teacher-training high school of the University of Debrecen with the help of interviewers. Beyond socio-demographic data individual sporting and e-sporting habits were assessed in a gender specific context. ‪563 respondents were included in the survey, with an average age of 15.9 ±1.4 years (mean±SD). The respondents reported an average free-time of 3.2 ±1.6 and 6.5 ±1.7 hours on weekdays and weekends, respectively, with boys having a half an hour more free-time. While only 22.7% of the girls play video-games, this is 85.5% in the case of boys. The percentage of youth engaged in daily out-ofschool physical activities was 22.9%, but those who do out-of-school sports 2-3 times a week the ratio was 89.5%. ‪While most of the students participate in regular physical activities, they spend a significant amount of their free-time playing video-games. Not only is this time less for girls than for boys, girls report less free-time and less time spent doing physical activity than boys.