We know for a fact that teens love playing video games, but how many adults have the same preferences? The most recent study by Pew Internet and American Life Project revealed that while almost 97 percent of teens play video games, 53 percent of adults enjoy doing the same thing, one fifth in them engaging in video game activities on a daily basis.

Among adult gamers, the study found the largest proportion belongs to the younger category of adults. Almost 81 percent of young adults, aged 18-29, play video games, while only 60 percent of adults aged 30-49, 40 percent of adults aged 50-64, and 23 percent of adults over 65, engage in this type of activity.

Despite this difference between younger and older generations of adults, older gamers are more avid players than younger gamers, the study reveals. Over one third (36 percent) of gamers 65 and older play games on a daily basis, almost double the number of adults in younger categories. The explanation for that was very simple: older adults have more free time to play.

Another big differentiation resides in the devices adults choose to play games on. For example, approximately two thirds of gamers play computer games, which seem to be equally popular in both adult and teen categories. But when it comes to video game consoles, only 53 percent of adult gamers use them, compared to 89 percent of teens.

In addition to that, teens are also engaging more in game activities on portable devices, such as cell phones, PSP, DS or Gameboy. By comparison, only 35 percent of adults play cell phone games, compared to 50 percent of teens, and only 25 percent of adults play games on portable gaming devices, compared to 62 percent of teens.

Furthermore, men are more likely than women to play video games (55 percent, compared to 50 percent), and are also more likely to play games on a console (35 percent of men, compared to 21 percent of women).

On ethnic level, Blacks and Hispanics were also found to be more likely to play video games on mobile devices (over a quarter of them compared to just 16 percent of whites). In addition to that, parents were also more likely to play video games than adults who were not parents, and were also more likely to use all kinds of devices for games.

But if adults are engaging in games more than expected, researchers found that only 2 percent of these gamers are interested in virtual worlds, such as Second Life, which appear to be the land of teens. At the same time, the percent of adults engaging in MMOGs is also smaller, compared to teens.

The big difference between this particular survey and surveys about teens and video games is that there were no observations made on the impact of video games on adult life. This showcases once more that video games are more popular, but also more influential, among teens.