Comparing Social Support in Adolescents Interested in Different Types of Computer Games

With the advancement of networks and the Internet industry, computer games have considerably progressed in the recent years and have been released in various types. Hence, the objective of this study was to compare social support in adolescents interested in different types of computer games.
This descriptive study followed a casual-comparative design. The statistical population of this study included all male adolescents and young adults referred to Internet gaming centers in Zahedan, Iran. In this study, multi-stage cluster sampling method was applied through which 8 gaming centers were randomly chosen and then among all people who referred to the considered gaming centers, 156 individuals were selected randomly as the regarded sample. To gather the data, the Mary Procidano and Kenneth Heller’s Social Support Questionnaire (1983) was applied. To analyze the data, frequency, percentage, medium, mode and SD and one- way ANOVA and post hoc Scheffe’s test was used through SPSS 23.
There was a difference among social support of people interested in different types of computer games. In this regard, those who were interested in online multiplayer games perceived higher levels of social support compared to those who were interested in single player games (p ≤ 0.05). Moreover, the findings demonstrated that subjects who chose Internet gaming centers and their houses as places to play compared to those who only selected their houses to play had higher levels of perceived social support.
With the increasing development of computer games and diversification and expansion of its different styles, each type of computer games should be studied and investigated distinctly.