The Causes, Diagnose and Intervention of Game Addiction

Abstract

Since the birth of video games, psychological research has focused on game addiction, and previous studies have obtained many valuable results. However, the researches on game addiction still have many limitations since they are lack integration. Therefore, this paper systematically introduces the research on game addiction: the causes, diagnostic criteria, and interventions of game addiction. We list the databases and screening criteria for searching the literature; 54 articles were included in this literature review. In the first part of this review, we discuss the causes of game addiction, including physiological factors, psychological factors, and external environments, and gave some suggestions about the causes of game addiction to further researchers. The second part compares three different diagnostic criteria such as Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) from the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and World Health Organization (WHO), respectively, and the Clinical diagnostic criteria for Internet addiction from China. In the third part, we describe the two most commonly used interventions for game addiction: medication intervention and psychological intervention. In addition, we also summarize and analyze the effects of various therapies and their shortcomings.