Video Game Streaming in Young People and Teenagers: Uptake, User Groups, Dangers, and Opportunities

Abstract

In recent years, live video streaming platforms for video games have been gaining popularity. These types of services, which enable anyone to broadcast and consume live content, are revolutionising the current video game landscape. Users approach the emergence of and participation in these platforms driven by a range of motivations. It is essential to characterise the different forms of participation in services such as Twitch to evaluate the phenomenon and reflect on its advantages and disadvantages. To that end, a survey was carried out of 580 young people and adolescents aged between 14 and 24. The aim of this study is thus to explore the uptake of these platforms, as well as identify user groups, distinguish between different motivations, and address the associated benefits and harms. Applying a methodology based on factor analysis and cluster analysis, user profiles were characterised according to their specific features, gaming/viewing hours, self-perception of their skill level as a player, devices used, and type or genre of video game. Four subgroups of gamers/viewers were thus identified: casual, social, hobby, and problematic. The results showed that older users and female users feature more prominently in the first two groups, as do those spending less time on video games and live streaming platforms. Conversely, in the hobby and problematic groups, we observe just the opposite. The existence of profiles at possible risk of addiction underlines how, at a preventive level, there is a need for more in-depth research on these types of services and greater public awareness of the dangers of uncontrolled use.

Parental Controls Off in Google Play Store: Sexualisation of Female Characters in Video Game Advertisements

“…Higher Education and Oriental Studies (HEOS) -Vol 2(4): 1 -22 It is undeniable that video games have become a popular entertainment across the community and the growth in video games is impressive to the extent that people of all ages have access to these games regardless of time zone or geographical difference (Cabeza-Ramírez et al, 2021;Noël et al, 2021;Skowronski et al, 2021;Slater et al, 2017;Tang et al, 2019;Zakaria & Adnan, 2022). Presently, much of the video games are available on the Google Play Store, an application on smartphones that displays a wide range of video games with a variety of categories available.…”

“…Finally, when users are exposed to sexualised contents from childhood, as they gradually grow up to young adults, they may begin to engage in pornography which will lead them to practice unsafe sexual practices (Ali et al, 2021;Cabeza-Ramírez et al, 2021). Cabeza-Ramírez et al (2021) have also mentioned that the exposure to sexualised contents will lead to uncontrollable viewing of pornography.…”

“…Finally, when users are exposed to sexualised contents from childhood, as they gradually grow up to young adults, they may begin to engage in pornography which will lead them to practice unsafe sexual practices (Ali et al, 2021;Cabeza-Ramírez et al, 2021). Cabeza-Ramírez et al (2021) have also mentioned that the exposure to sexualised contents will lead to uncontrollable viewing of pornography. Following the exposure to various kinds of media, with video games included, studies have previously found that university students are sexually active as they have been eager to experience the sexual practices seen in media (Ali et al, 2021;Lyu et al, 2020;Tan et al, 2022;Zhao et al, 2022).…”

“…With the advancement of technology, today's mainstream media is now regarded as modern and it has been prevalent not only on television but also on social networking websites (Aksar & Firdaus, 2021;Cabeza-Ramírez et al, 2021;Du, 2022;Karsay et al, 2018;Zakaria & Adnan, 2022). The continuous modernisation of digital technology has made media even more popular than in the 1970s, especially where there is a growth of video games with features that would seem to be impossible before (Beck & Rose, 2018;Ferguson & Colwell, 2020;Karsay et al, 2018;Liu, 2018;Slater et al, 2017).…”

Reliability Generalization Meta-Analysis of Internet Gaming Disorder Scale

“…With the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increase in the number of video game users and related phenomena, such as video game streaming [ 14 ]. However, cases of Internet gaming disorders have also increased by between 1–2.5% [ 15 ].…”