The influences of computer gameplay and social media use on computer science identity and computer science career interests

Computer gameplay and social media are the two most common forms of entertainment in the digital age. Many scholars share the assumption that leisure-time digital consumption is associated with computer science (CS) affinity, but there is a dearth of research evidence for this relationship. Female students generally spend less time on gaming and more time on social media than do male students, so a gender comparison perspective is helpful. Using multinomial logistic regression analysis on a national sample of 10,197 U.S. college students in introductory CS courses, we found that frequent computer gameplay was strongly associated with an increase in the probability of CS career interest relative to a Non-STEM career interest (beta = -0.17, se = 0.06, p < .01) for both male (N = 7214) and female students (N = 2659). In contrast, increased social media use predicted a higher CS career interest relative to a Science/Engineering career interest (beta = 0.12, se = 0.06, p < .05) for female students by 8%, however, a lower interest for male students by 4%.