Gaming Through the Pandemic

Would you say that you played more games during the pandemic, or did you spend about the same amount of time gaming? These survey results may surprise you!

According to the Common Sense Census 2021 survey’s gaming data, there wasn’t a big spike in video game usage during the pandemic, even though kids seemingly had more time to play games like Minecraft and Fortnite.

Surprisingly, time spent playing video games during the pandemic was about the same as pre-pandemic for both tweens and teens. This is true whether on a computer, mobile device, game console or portable player.

Tweens age 8 to 12 spent an average of 1 hour and 27 minutes gaming in 2021 (compared to 1 hour and 28 minutes in 2019). Teens age 13 to 18 spent an average of 1 hour and 46 minutes gaming in 2021 (compared to 1 hour and 36 minutes in 2019).

Mobile Gaming

While the amount of time spent gaming remained roughly the same, enjoyment of mobile gaming slightly decreased among tweens and teens. In 2019, 55 percent of tweens enjoyed playing games on a mobile device as compared to 45 percent in 2021. As for teenagers, 30 percent preferred playing on a mobile device in 2019, compared to 28 percent of teens who used a mobile device for playing games in 2021.

Video Game Playing by Gender

Playing video games has always been more appealing to boys than girls. Boys are more likely to play video games every day, and they also spend considerably more time playing games than girls do. According to the survey, girls will play for an hour at a time, while boys will play for two hours and 20 minutes on average.

60 percent of boys say they play video games “a lot” on computers and consoles, versus only 24 percent of girls. Girls play games more often on smartphones and tablets (31 percent) than they do on computers and consoles (24 percent). Boys actually play more mobile games than girls, but only slightly (40 percent vs. 31 percent).

Click here to view the Common Sense Census 2021 survey gaming data (PDF)

Would you say that you played more games during the pandemic, or did you spend about the same amount of time gaming? Do you prefer playing on your computer, console, or mobile devices?