Parents Would Rather Kids Play Video Games Than Use Social Media

Article courtesy of LDShop.

Parents increasingly appear to distinguish between gaming and social media when it comes to screen time.

According to the Entertainment Software Association’s 2025 Essential Facts report, 70% of U.S. parents say they would rather their children spend time playing video games than using social media. The finding points to a major shift in how families think about screen time. Increasingly, parents are separating gaming from the broader anxiety surrounding algorithm-driven feeds, citing family interaction, parental controls, and social connection as key differences.

Parents Are Playing Along

Gaming is increasingly becoming a shared family activity. Unlike the isolating nature of social media feeds, gaming offers families a shared activity with a beginning, middle, and end.

82% of gaming parents play video games alongside their children.
52% play together at least once a week.

The Motivations: Parents cite genuine fun (61%), a natural way to connect (55%), and quality family time (55%) as the driving forces.

Gaming offers something a social feed fundamentally cannot: a shared activity with a beginning, a middle, and a reason to be in the same room. “The data points to a platform that has built real equity with families,” says Alex Zhou, Senior Gaming Industry Analyst at LDShop. “Gaming fits naturally into how families already spend time together. Parents can participate, understand what their kids are doing, and set boundaries more easily than they can on social platforms.”

A Structure Families Can Trust

Gaming also comes with tools and structures that many parents say feel easier to understand and manage than social media. According to the ESRB’s 2025 parent survey:

Parents can read a rating, set a limit, and sit in on a session. The tools exist, they work, and families are already using them.

The Social Media Concern Sharpening the Choice

The preference for gaming is made sharper by what sits on the other side of the comparison. Pew Research found 55% of parents are extremely or very concerned about teen mental health (nearly 20 points higher than teens themselves). Among those parents, 44% say social media has the biggest negative impact on teenagers today.

The public health picture reinforces that instinct. The US Surgeon General has stated that social media cannot yet be considered sufficiently safe for children and adolescents. The advisory notes that teenagers spending more than three hours daily on social platforms face roughly double the risk of depression and anxiety symptoms. For parents watching their teenagers disappear into feeds they cannot see, rate, or join, that is not an abstract warning.

How You Play Changes the Outcome

Gallup’s research adds another layer that matters specifically for families:

Gaming with family is not the same activity as gaming in isolation. The well-being benefit is tied directly to social context, and parents who play weekly with their children are engaging in exactly the format the data supports most.

“The gaming platforms that understand this dynamic are the ones growing right now,” Zhou adds. “When play is built around connection rather than just engagement, it stops being screen time parents need to manage and starts being something they actually want more of.”

Where Screen Time Goes Next

For many families, gaming has become a more social form of screen time. The distinction families are drawing reflects something more durable: a growing preference for digital experiences that leave room for other people. Gaming has that. The question now is how the rest of the screen landscape responds.

About LDShop: LDShop is a global game top-up platform, offering players discounted in-game currency, gift cards, and recharge services across hundreds of popular titles, including Genshin Impact, PUBG Mobile, and Fortnite. Trusted by gamers worldwide, LDShop provides fast, secure transactions and localized customer support across multiple languages.