Families Playing Animal Crossing Together: Coping With Video Games During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Katy E Pearce; Jason C Yip; Jin Ha Lee; Jesse J Martinez; Travis W Windleharth; Arpita Bhattacharya; Qisheng Li

doi:10.1177/15554120211056125

Families Playing Animal Crossing Together: Coping With Video Games During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Games Cult. 2022 Jul;17(5):773-794. doi: 10.1177/15554120211056125.

Authors

Katy E Pearce¹, Jason C Yip², Jin Ha Lee², Jesse J Martinez³, Travis W Windleharth², Arpita Bhattacharya⁴, Qisheng Li³

Affiliations

¹ Department of Communication, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
² The Information School, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
³ Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
⁴ Department of Informatics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA.

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic was stressful for everyone, particularly for families who had to supervise and support children, facilitate remote schooling, and manage work and home life. We consider how families coped with pandemic-related stress using the video game Animal Crossing: New Horizons. Combining a family coping framework with theorizing about media as a coping tool, this interview study of 27 families (33 parents and 37 children) found that parents and children individual coped with pandemic-related stress with media. Parents engaged in protective buffering of their children with media, taking on individual responsibility to cope with a collective problem. Families engaged in communal coping, whereby media helped the family cope with a collective problem, taking on shared ownership and responsibility. We provide evidence for video games as coping tools, but with the novel consideration of family coping with media.

Keywords: Animal Crossing; COVID-19; communal coping; coping; families; pandemic; stress; video games.