The Relationship Between the Use of Online Digital Games and Anxiety Symptoms in Children and Adolescents

Abstract

This paper aims to investigate the relationship between the use of online digital games by children and adolescents with the symptoms of anxiety, in view of the relevance of the topic today. For this purpose, instruments such as a profile questionnaire created by the authors and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) were used to investigate the existence of an association between the use of online games and anxiety symptoms that were applied through an online survey in a sample of 50 children and adolescents from a Brazilian public school of 10 to 16 years old. Of the 50 participants, 41 (82%) showed symptoms ofanxiety and 42 (88%) use digital games online. A significant negative correlation was found between the time spent using virtual games and anxiety symptoms (ρ = -0,526; p<0,01). The results obtained show that the use of online digital games is encouraged by the symptoms of anxiety, working as a coping strategy to avoid the anxiety symptoms. Therefore, the longer they play, the more they avoid potentially threatening situations, and thus have less anxious symptoms.