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They’ve become an important way to spend time with peers. But they’ve also become more addictive.
By Claire Cain Miller and Amy Fan
Claire Cain Miller is working on a series of articles about boys and young men. Amy Fan analyzed and charted data on their gaming habits.
Oct. 3, 2025Updated 9:23 a.m. ET
In the last decade and a half, boys and young men ages 15 to 24 more than doubled their average time spent gaming, to about 10 hours a week, according to a major survey.
Some teachers say gaming has disrupted focus in classrooms. Some economists have linked it to the decline in young men’s work hours. Many readers told us it was a chief reason for the recent struggles of boys and young men, when we started our series on the subject in May.
Yet video games also serve an important role in young people’s lives. They’ve become a central way that young people socialize and provide them — especially boys — with a sense of belonging.
As gaming rose, especially in the pandemic, other activities fell
Hours per week U.S. boys and men ages 15 to 24 spent on activities
The increase in time boys and young men spent playing games was the biggest of any activity measured by the American Time Use Survey, the large federal survey that each year asks a nationally representative sample of thousands of people what they did every minute of a day. (The category includes other types of games, like cards, but evidence suggests it’s mostly video games.)
The rise has coincided with technological changes that made games much more engrossing. Gaming went from an activity done at home on a console or computer to one also done on phones, anywhere and anytime.
Teens see pros and cons in video games
Among U.S. teens who play video games, the share who said it’s helped or hurt their …
