1 “It feels more real”: An Interpretive Phenomenological Study of the Meaning of Video Games in Adolescent Lives Susan R. Forsyth, PhD, RN Assistant Adjunct Professor, Social & Behavioral Sciences University of California, San Francisco Assistant Professor School of Nursing, Samuel Merritt University, Oakland, CA Catherine A. Chesla, RN, PhD, FAAN Professor and Interim Chair, Family Health Care Nursing University of California, San Francisco Roberta S. Rehm, PhD, RN, FAAN Professor, Family Health Care Nursing University of California, San Francisco Ruth E. Malone, PhD, RN, FAAN Professor and Chair, Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences School of Nursing University of California, San Francisco Corresponding author: Susan R. Forsyth Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences 3333 California Street, LHts-455, Box 0612 San Francisco, CA 94118
[email protected] 2 510.512-8290 Acknowledgements: We thank Quinn Grundy, Kate Horton and Leslie Dubbin for their invaluable feedback. Declarations of Conflicting Interests The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. Funding The authors disclosed the receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article. Susan Forsyth is funded by a dissertation award from the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program (TRDRP), grant #22DT- 0003. Published in Advances in Nursing Science, October 4, 2017 http://journals.lww.com/advancesinnursingscience/toc/publishahead 3 Abstract The pervasiveness of video gaming among adolescents today suggests a need to understand how gaming affects identity formation. We interviewed 20 adolescents about their experiences of playing, asking them to describe how they used games and how game playing affected their real-world selves.