Third places and national contexts among Generation Z in a mobile game: Quantitatively examining third place characteristics and well-being of players from Brazil, China, and the United States

Youth online engagement and well-being are especially important in emerging countries, but they tend to be understudied. Rather, the existing research tends to be more on the United States. This study examined third place theory of virtual spaces on individual-level well-being among the Generation Z from Brazil and China, especially comparing them to their U.S. counterparts. Well-being, both related to realizing your full potential and lowering psychopathology, is relevant to youth engagement in online spaces, because the spaces can help the youth express their true selves and engage in supportive online communities. The participants were players of a mobile video game whose three months of pre-survey gameplay data and survey data (N = 986) were analyzed. We compared countries on several third place characteristics, on well-being, and how the third place characteristics predicted well-being. We found that players from the three countries were significantly different in several third place characteristics (i.e., neutral ground, leveler, and conversation). Well-being was also higher among the Chinese players. Moreover, the leveler characteristic–commonality of game levels among players and their in-game friends–significantly predicted well-being. These findings from a mobile game help better understand youth online perceptions and behaviors in different countries, correlates to well-being, and contribute to the theory development of virtual third places and digital public spheres.