Gómez-Gonzalvo et al. (2020) Video games and student performance

Gómez-Gonzalvo, F., Devís-Devís, J., & Molina-Alventosa, P. (2020). Video game usage time in adolescents’ academic performance. Comunicar, 28(65), 87–96. https://doi.org/10.3916/C65-2020-08

Gómez-Gonzalvo et al. (2020) aimed their research towards digital leisure involving digital technology from the Internet, consoles, mobile phones, digital platforms, video games and more. As an increasing number of adolescents have been using video games, and the amount of time adolescents play these games increases, concern has risen amongst educators, parents and administrators (Gómez-Gonzalvo et al., 2020). Their article focuses on the relationship between the time of using a device according to the type of day and academic performance.   

The intended audience is not noted but could be aimed towards educators and people working with children.

Purpose	Examine relationship between the time of using a device according to the type of day and academic performance.
Methodology	Ex post facto study by surveying a sample of students in Compulsory Secondary Education in 10 schools in the Valencian Community            1060 students between the ages of 12 and 16            Set in a region of Spain            Two factor ANOVA was performed, academic performance by weekday/weekend. Spearman correlation to explore relationship between two factors.
Results	On average, teenagers played 47.23 minutes a day. Average time on weekdays was 26.83 minutes and weekends 74.34 minutes. 45 average minutes of weekly use was the maximum for avoiding failing all subjects and achieve a passing grade. More likely to achieve lower scores if you had similar or greater time playing on weekdays than weekends.
Conclusion	Teens who play video games increase their time spent playing games over the weekend regardless of academic performance. Teenagers who spent the longest time playing video games fail 1-3 subjects and more than 4 subjects. The time spent playing video games effects academic performance.

A study found that limiting game time by a couple of hours and including self-compassion intervention can reduce the risk or completely evade gaming addiction and psychological disorders related to game addiction (Iyer et al., 2022). Whilst not fully related to Gómez-Gonzalvo et al. (2020), this shows that the limiting of video game time in university students can avoid video game addiction.

It is important for parents and teachers to encourage students to limit the amount of time they play video games as it has an effect on student performance. Gómez-Gonzalvo et al. (2020) shows the effect that video games have on student performance.