Surveys and Their Results About Online Games

The results of the survey conducted.

Kids Help Phone conducted a voluntary and anonymous survey, both English and French, about online gaming. The survey asked 22 questions to young people about their online gaming habit, to find out why they practice such an activity, what are their favorite games, their concerns, their different stories, thoughts and emotions related to this activity.
In all, 2,793 surveys were completed (including 384 in French). Of this total, 64% of respondents are female. Although responses are from all provinces and territories, a majority of English-language responses come from Ontario (50%), while almost all French-language responses come from Quebec (92%).

Age trends

The age of respondents varies from under 12 to over 20 years. The youngest group accounts for 30% of the responses, the 13- and 14-year-olds account for 33%, and the 15-year-old group for more than 20 years represents the last group at 37%. A proportion of respondents is slightly older in French-language surveys than in English-language surveys.
In general, younger respondents, aged 12 and under, showed an interest in a wider variety of games but preferred more interactive games and first-person shooter games, and a good 50% of older youth 12 and under claim to have played online games for five hours or less per week, which seems to imply a healthy balance between the online world and the real world.
In our sample, younger groups also seem to be more aware, or at least more concerned about the dependence that video games can generate. Concerns about time spent online are brighter for younger people and decrease with age. Tweens younger than 12 years old who participated in this survey, 20% say they completely or partly agree when asked if they are worried about playing too long online (compared to 3% of older respondents). 18 years and over), and 11% say they can not stop playing by themselves (another 26% say they are not sure if they could stop by themselves).
These results suggest that many of the young people who responded to the Kids Help Phone survey questioned their ability to stop playing online and reduce the number of hours they play online.

Trends by sex

Research reports on gender trends suggest that gaming is more of a problem for boys than for girls. Lo, Wang and Fang (2005) found that about 80% of boys versus 20% of girls participate in online games. A recent Dutch study also confirms that boys are more likely to take part in video games than girls, and spend more time there (Lemmens, Valkenburg and Peter, 2009). Research indicates that boys who play online are more at risk of becoming addicted than girls.

In this survey of Kids Help Phone, girls answered more than boys (64% of girls vs. 36% of boys). This gender distribution is representative of the user profile of the service offered by Kids Help Phone, but it also suggests that online gaming of interest to both genders.
Overall, female survey respondents tend to express more concern than boys about online gaming times, suggesting that they are more aware of the negative effects of online gaming.