Federal Statistical Office: Children and teenagers play more than one hour a day

In a so-called Time Use Survey (ZVE) in 2022, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) found that children and young people spend one hour and seven minutes a day playing games in front of screens. There were clear differences between the genders.

Children and young people between the ages of 10 and 17 were relevant for the survey. "Boys play video and computer games significantly more often than girls: At 1 hour and 46 minutes, they spent four times as much time a day playing video and computer games as girls (26 minutes)," the Federal Office explains in a statement.

Less gaming with increasing age

According to the Destatis survey, the age group of 18 to 29-year-olds, i.e. young adults, only spent 38 minutes playing screen games. The 30 to 44-year-olds spend only 18 minutes a day playing games, and the 45 to 64-year-olds only eight minutes. The 65+ generation spends just six minutes a day playing video games.

The Federal Statistical Office explains that the time use survey only takes place every ten years on a voluntary basis. The participating household members aged ten and over recorded their time use in a time diary or app on three predetermined days, two of which were weekdays and one of which was a weekend. In total, around 10,000 households with 20,000 people aged ten and over took part in ZVE 2022.

Bitkom came to significantly different results in 2022. On average, nine out of ten children in their survey played video games for two hours and 29 minutes a day - although they spent significantly longer playing at the weekend. The difference between boys and girls was only half an hour. However, Bitkom surveyed 10 to 18-year-olds, which may account for some of the different results.

(dmk)