Examination of Mental Training and Digital Game Playing Habits of Athletes

This research was conducted to examine the mental training and digital game playing behaviors of athletes in terms of various demographic variables. 280 volunteer athletes (174 men and 106 women) from Diyarbakır (140) and Elazığ (140) engaged in individual and team sports branches as members of the research group. The study used the "Personal Information Form" as a data collection instrument, the "Mental Training Inventory in Sports (MTIS)" to assess athletes' mental training levels, and the "Digital Gaming Attitude Scale (DGAS)" to assess their attitudes toward playing digital games. There was a significant difference between the type of sport performed, the status of playing digital games, the digitally playing the sport branch, the income status, the year of doing sports, the sportive degree, the weekly training time and the weekly digital game playing (p0.05). Time, and the Mental Training Inventory and its sub-dimensions. Gender, province, age variable, Mental Training Inventory, and sub-dimensions of the athletes did not differ significantly (p0.05). Male athletes outperformed female athletes on the Mental Training Inventory, whereas amateur athletes outperformed professional athletes. Female athletes outnumber male athletes in the research group; team sports athletes outnumber individual athletes; professional athletes outnumber amateur level athletes; athletes who play digital games outnumber those who do not; athletes with a high income level do not play digital games; and athletes with a sports background of 12 years or more do not play digital games. The total scale score average appeared to be larger. As a consequence, it was discovered that there is a positive and highly significant association between athletes' mental training and digital game playing attitudes.Keywords: Digital Gaming Habits, Individual Sports, Mental Training, Team Sports