It is mainly children and adolescents who are involved in video gaming. The lockdown caused by the COVID-19 pandemic may have further increased their use of video games and, consequently, the risk of gaming disorder (GD) symptoms. However, currently, we do not have exhaustive knowledge of this issue. To fill this gap, the current study aims to analyze video gaming habits in children and adolescents during the lockdown, starting in March 2020 in Italy, the first European country affected by the pandemic. Specifically, we aim to understand how variables related to parents—for instance, knowledge of their offspring’s life, the monitoring of their video gaming habits, and parental use of video games—are related to their offspring’s time spent on video games and GD symptoms. A web-based survey involving parents (n = 554, 79% mothers, mean age = 45.39) of 554 children and adolescents (73% males, mean age = 11.11) was utilized. The results showed that they were involved in video games, particularly boys and adolescents, with high rates of GD symptoms. The parents also spent a considerable amount of time playing video games. A path model that explained the mechanisms through which parental variables were related to their offspring’s time spent on video games and GD symptoms, controlling for gender and age, was verified. Overall, the findings indicate the importance of educating parents to behave effectively with respect to video games and monitor their offspring’s video gaming habits.

Background: Materialism is an attitude that considers material goods to be central in life. Nowadays, adolescents appear to have a high level of materialism, which is related to risky behaviors. Nevertheless, there is a lack of measurement tools with adequate psychometric properties to assess materialism in this age group. For this reason, two studies were conducted to investigate the psychometric properties of the original and short Material Values Scale (MVS) in adolescents. Methods: In Study 1, participants were randomly split into two subsamples to compare psychometric properties of the original version of MVS with those of the short one. The first subsample consisted of 1054 adolescents (58% male; Mage = 16.34; SD = 1.15), and the second one of 1058 adolescents (57% male; Mage = 16.26; SD = 1.04). In Study 2, the psychometric properties of a revised version of the short MVS (without item 8) were investigated to confirm its adequacy with a new sample composed of 1896 adolescents (60% male; Mage = 16.40; SD = 2.76). Results: Results of Study 1 showed that the short version appeared to be a better measuring tool with respect to the long form to investigate materialism in adolescents. Nevertheless, problems with item 8 emerged. Results of Study 2 attested to the adequacy of the psychometric properties of the revised version of the short MVS (by excluding item 8) in this age group, in terms of dimensionality, reliability, and validity. Conclusions: Findings show that the revised short version of the MVS could be a valid and reliable tool for measuring the multidimensional construct of materialism in Italian adolescents.