Problematic Internet Use and Problematic Online Gaming Are Not the Same: Findings from a Large Nationally Representative Adolescent Sample

Abstract

There is an ongoing debate in the literature whether problematic Internet use (PIU) and problematic online gaming (POG) are two distinct conceptual and nosological entities or whether they are the same. The present study contributes to this question by examining the interrelationship and the overlap between PIU and POG in terms of sex, school achievement, time spent using the Internet and/or online gaming, psychological well-being, and preferred online activities. Questionnaires assessing these variables were administered to a nationally representative sample of adolescent gamers (N = 2,073; M age = 16.4 years, SD = 0.87; 68.4% male). Data showed that Internet use was a common activity among adolescents, while online gaming was engaged in by a considerably smaller group. Similarly, more adolescents met the criteria for PIU than for POG, and a small group of adolescents showed symptoms of both problem behaviors. The most notable difference between the two problem behaviors was in terms of sex. POG was much more strongly associated with being male. Self-esteem had low effect sizes on both behaviors, while depressive symptoms were associated with both PIU and POG, affecting PIU slightly more. In terms of preferred online activities, PIU was positively associated with online gaming, online chatting, and social networking, while POG was only associated with online gaming. Based on our findings, POG appears to be a conceptually different behavior from PIU, and therefore the data support the notion that Internet Addiction Disorder and Internet Gaming Disorder are separate nosological entities.

Individual Differences and the Development of Internet Addiction

“…Taken together, these findings could potentially illustrate common clinical course and shared etiology between different types of addictive behaviors. Furtherly, these results lend support to previous studies suggesting some underlying common risk factors between several technological addictions and related behaviors (Andreassen et al, 2016;Grant, Potenza, Weinstein, & Gorelick, 2010;Pontes, 2017;Robbins & Clark, 2015) and provide context to further understand why empirical studies often report positive associations between various addictive technological behaviors (Andreassen et al, 2016;Király et al, 2014;Pontes, 2017).…”

Internet Addiction: A Review of the First Twenty Years

“…When it comes to the cause of addiction, this approach implies that online content and online activities take precedence over the medium itself. However, as the medium itself changes the essential aspects of the original activity, both content/activity and medium become essential ingredients of IA (Király et al 2014).…”

Correlates of Problematic Gaming – Is There Support for Proneness to Risky Behaviour?

“…These include differentiating Internet addiction and IGD (Király et al 2014a), the continuum of gaming problems from risk factors to real addiction (Kuss & Griffiths 2012), differences in the risk of addiction connected with online and offline gaming (Király et al 2014b) or different types of online games, and highlighting multiplayer online role-playing games as the most hazardous (e.g. Stetina et al 2011).…”