Late Adolescents' Experiences With and Attitudes Toward Videogames¹

A total of 229 late adolescents (a large majority 15 to 19 years of age) completed a questionnaire that assesses a broad range of videogame‐relevant experiences, preferences, and attitudes. Videogame playing was found to be a more popular, and a more highly regarded, activity among males than females. Gender differences were also found in participants' ratings of their motivations for playing videogames, their evaluations of particular characteristics of videogames, and their selection of their “most favorite” videogame. The differences between frequent and infrequent videogame players appeared to be limited to differences in the extent to which videogame playing is pursued and evaluated as a positive leisure activity, rather than reflecting broad differences in interest or personality. Some relations were found between participants' self‐reported personality characteristics (i.e., self‐esteem, empathy, conscientiousness, and introversion) and their attitudes toward videogames.