A new survey found that 86 percent of parents believe teens spend too much time gaming. The C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health. also finds differences in gender. Twice as many parents say their teen boy plays video games every day compared to parents of teen girls. Teen boys are also more likely to spend three or more hours gaming.
Surveyed parents believe gaming often gets in the way of other aspects of their teen's life, such as family activities and interactions (46 percent), sleep (44 percent), homework (34 percent), friendship with non-gaming peers (33 percent) and extracurricular activities (31 percent).
Those parents may be wrong about how much time their kids spend gaming. Many parents of frequent gamers have a misconception that the amount of time their teenager spends playing video games is in line with their peers.
Credit: C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health
Among parents of daily gamers, 54 percent report their teen plays three or more hours a day (compared to only 13 percent of teens that do not play every day.) Just 13 percent of these parents believe their teen spends more time gaming than others, while 78 percent believe their teen's gaming is less than or about the same as their peers.
Parents polled use various strategies to limit the amount of time their teen spends gaming, including encouraging other activities (75 percent), setting time limits (54 percent), providing incentives to limit gaming (23 percent) and hiding gaming equipment (14 percent).
