One in ten teenagers have played online games, survey finds

More than one in 10 boys aged 10 to 16 admit to playing online games despite the legal age of 18, according to a survey by the Trimbos drug addiction institute.

Boys gamble online much more often than girls, according to the quadrennial Survey on Adolescent Addiction and Mental Health, with 11.4% of boys accessing gambling sites compared to 1.9% of girls.

“The numbers are worrying,” researcher Tony van Rooij told NOS. “Every online player under the age of 18 who plays for money is one too many. »

Teenage gamers avoid age checks by using someone else's account or playing on illegal websites based overseas.

Adolescents are more vulnerable to developing an addiction, Van Rooij said, which will be harder to combat later in life.

Vaping on the rise

Vaping is also gaining popularity among young people: 8% of primary school students say they have tried it. 14.3% of adolescents report having vaped in the past month, including 4% who report vaping daily.

The percentage of adolescents who smoke cigarettes daily has not decreased since 2017, remaining around 2.2%, of whom 8.5% have lit up a cigarette in the past month.

Previous figures from the institute have shown that young people who vape also smoke, debunking the myth that one discourages the other.

The use of laughing gas has decreased from 6.7% in 2019 to 2% in 2023. This could be linked to the ban on the sale and possession of laughing gas and greater awareness of the physical consequences of its use, Trimbos said.