[The world of computer games II: a demographic study on prevalence of computer players in secondary school students]

The article presents the results of the first stage of our own research on the popularization of computer games among adolescents. A questionnaire was filled by 2678 class one pupils of secondary schools (born in 1979). The investigations were aimed at selecting a group of secondary school pupils particularly interested in computers and computer games. The investigations proved that the problem of computer games playing regards more than a half of the school pupils population we examined. There are twice as many boys as girls among the computer games players. Also, boys have better knowledge of computer games, they start to play at a younger age, devote more time to playing these games. The most popular hardware are Amiga or IBM compatible PCs. As many as 3/4 of computer games players have their own computers. The most significant information was the data concerning the time devoted to playing, both daily and weekly. The investigations show that boys spend much more time playing computer games than girls do. The selected group of pupils will undergo detailed clinical as well as psychological examination.