Adults Get Their Game Face On

Video games aren't just for kids anymore: A new Pew Internet Research study found that 53 percent of American adults age 18 and older play video games and roughly 21 percent play every day or almost every day.

Still, teenagers—the crowd that doesn't have a pesky day job to interrupt playing time—are the most active players. A whopping 97 percent of teens reported playing video games. But perhaps their parents are picking up some of their kids' habits: Parents surveyed are far more likely than non-parents to play video games. Sixty-six percent of parents or guardians of children 17 years old or younger play games, compared with 47 percent of gaming adults who are not parents.

The study also found that men were more likely to play video games than women (55 percent v. 50 percent). Also, adults tended to prefer playing on computers, whereas teens enjoyed gaming consoles more. Young adults, 18 to 29 years old, are the most likely to play games on any given device. But, although computers are most popular with the total population, younger Americans are more likely to play games using a console than any other type of video game-playing device. A majority (61 percent) of 18- to 29-year-old respondents play games on consoles; 86 percent of teen gamers use consoles.

Internet users are also significantly more likely to play games than those who do not go online. Three-quarters of adults surveyed use the Internet, and 64 percent of Internet users play games. By comparison, only 20 percent of non-Internet users play games.

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