The latest report from the Center for Scholars and Storytellers (CSS) at UCLA delves into the lifestyles of adolescent gamers, as well as what they seek from the media they consume. The 2025 Teens & Screens Report covers multiple topics related to teen users, and the gaming section discusses both the benefits that young gamers find in their hobby, as well as potential drawbacks and criticisms.
CSS surveyed over 1,500 adolescents between the ages of 10-24, with the questions covering multiple types of media including gaming. According to the report’s findings, 88% of them found “at least a little community” from gaming, while 68% said that gaming helped them connect with friends. 52% also said they felt gaming helped them regulate their emotions.
That said, the report also included the flip side of that fact, the pressures that teenagers face when their hobby is linked to their community: 65% of boys and young men and 57% of girls and young women reported feeling pressure to “act a certain way when you’re gaming because of your gender, race, or other identity” to a certain extent. The testimonials of young gamers also mentioned feeling pressure to play or like certain games depending on their identity.
Matt Puretz, a senior researcher at CSS and one of the report’s authors, told GamesBeat in an interview, “I think this is the flip side of how gaming is a social thing — it does expose people to social norms… We find that teen girls tend to avoid social gaming more often, especially with strangers. So I think the spaces where you have social gaming still tend to be majority male. The culture there is still a boy’s club. This affects the majority of young girls, but it also affects teen boys more often. It really restricts everyone, regardless of gender.”
Inclusion and representation are important to young gamers
The report also covered what gamers look for when they seek out titles to play, and 76% of those surveyed say they prefer to play games with “customizable characters who look like you” over games without them. 48% of people of color surveyed said they struggled finding games with characters who looked like them, with 56% of both Asian and Latino gamers mentioning this struggle in particular.
Adolescent gamers also seek relatable stories in their media, gaming included. 60% of the respondents said that they want to see more content featuring friendships as the central relationships, reflecting a diminished desire to see romance depicted. The report asked for more specifics, and 55% of the young respondents said they wanted to see more different-gender friendships that didn’t become romance. 49% wanted to see more same-gender friendships.
“Representation isn’t equal for females and males, isn’t equal for different kind of races,” Dr. Yalda Uhls, CSS founder and another author, told GamesBeat. “Asian and Latino participants felt least represented, and perhaps people might not think there’s a market for them… I think there’s a missed market opportunity in games that aren’t representing diverse groups.”
In addition to the above statistics, 42% of young gamers said they considered racial diversity in character and story when picking a game to play, irrespective of their own race. 40% said they avoid games that depict women in a “stereotypical and harmful way” — 42% of young women and 39% of young men.
The 2025 Teens & Screens Report is currently available to download now.