Prevalence and Predictors of Video Game Addiction: A Study Based on a National Representative Sample of Gamers

Int J Ment Health Addiction (2016) 14:672–686 DOI 10.1007/s11469-015-9592-8 Prevalence and Predictors of Video Game Addiction: A Study Based on a National Representative Sample of Gamers Charlotte Thoresen Wittek 1 & Turi Reiten Finserås 1 & Ståle Pallesen 2 & Rune Aune Mentzoni 2 & Daniel Hanss 3 & Mark D. Griffiths 4 & Helge Molde 1 Published online: 23 September 2015 # The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract Video gaming has become a popular leisure activity in many parts of the world, and an increasing number of empirical studies examine the small minority that appears to develop problems as a result of excessive gaming. This study investigated prevalence rates and predictors of video game addiction in a sample of gamers, randomly selected from the National Population Registry of Norway (N=3389). Results showed there were 1.4 % addicted gamers, 7.3 % problem gamers, 3.9 % engaged gamers, and 87.4 % normal gamers. Gender (being male) and age group (being young) were positively associated with addicted-, problem-, and engaged gamers. Place of birth (Africa, Asia, South- and Middle America) were positively associated with addicted- and problem gamers. Video game addiction was negatively associated with conscientiousness and positively associated with neuroticism. Poor psychosomatic health was positively associated with problem- and engaged gaming. These factors provide insight into the field of video game addiction, and may help to provide guidance as to how individuals that are at risk of becoming addicted gamers can be identified. Keywords Video game addiction . Prevalence . Personality traits . Psychosomatic health . Demographic variables Charlotte Thoresen Wittek and Turi Reiten Finserås are First Authorship * Helge Molde 1 Department of Clinical Psychology, University of Bergen, Christiesgate 12, 5015 Bergen, Norway 2 Department of Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen, Bergen, Norway 3 Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences and Social Work, Hochschule Darmstadt - University of Applied Sciences, Darmstadt, Germany 4 International Gaming Research Unit, Psychology Division, Nottingham Trent University, Nottingham, UK Int J Ment Health Addiction (2016) 14:672–686 673 Video gaming is one of the most popular contemporary recreational activities. It has been shown that 59 % of all Americans play video games (Ipsos MediaCT 2014). An average of 48 % of Europeans have played video games (Ipsos MediaCT 2012), and that 56 % of young adult Norwegians (aged 16–40 years) play video games regularly (Mentzoni et al. 2011). Among adolescents, the proportion of players is even higher, as demonstrated in a survey showing that 97 % of Americans aged 12–17 years play video games (Lenhart et al. 2008). As video game playing has increased, so to have reports of problematic playing. The terms used to describe problematic video game play vary across the research literature (Brunborg et al. 2013). In the present study video game addiction is used as the preferred term and will be used to refer to problematic or pathological use of video games, where gaming leads to a functional impairment in daily life. Lemmens et al. (2009) define video game addiction as an Bexcessive and compulsive use of computer or video games that results in social and/or emotional problems; despite these problems, the gamer is unable to control this excessive use.^ (Lemmens et al. 2009, p. 78). Given that previous studies have used different assessment instruments and included diverse participant groups, prevalence rates for video game addiction vary across studies (Ferguson et al. 2011). In a literature review, Ferguson et al. (2011) found a prevalence rate of about 6.0 % for video game addiction. When excluding those that could rather been categorized as engaged gamers, the prevalence dropped to 3.1 %. Employing this latter approach to classifying video game addiction, in which scale items reflecting salience, tolerance, and mood modification were regarded as indicators of engagement rather than addiction, Brunborg et al. (2013) found a prevalence of 4.2 % of addicted gamers, 12.9 % of problem gamers, 4.9 % of engaged gamers, and 78% of nonproblem gamers among Norwegian adolescents. In contrast, using the original scoring criteria for the Game Addiction Scale for Adolescents (GASA; Lemmens et al. 2009), Mentzoni et al. (2011) estimated the prevalence rates in a representative sample of Norwegians aged 16– 40 years old to be 0.6 and 4.1 % for video game addiction and problematic video gaming, respectively. The GASA is based on adapted DSM-IV criteria for pathological gambling (King et al. 2013), and hence, the Mentzoni et al. (2011) study might overestimate the prevalence rates, because an inclusion of Charlton’s (2002) engagement criteria would identify a number of gamers as addicted when they might not be. Studies generally agree that males report more problems related to video gaming compared to females (Brunborg et al. 2013; Ferguson et al. 2011; Mentzoni et al. 2011). Concerning age, one study found that young age was a strong predictor for problematic use of video games (Mentzoni et al. 2011). Because (i) most of the research on video games is conducted on adolescents and teenagers (Williams et al. 2009) and/or samples of gamers (Pontes and Griffiths 2014), and (ii) there is paucity of studies based on general population samples (Wenzel et al. 2009), more research is needed to identify sociodemographic factors relevant for the risk of developing video game addiction. As to the importance of other demographic variables, the research literature is relatively scarce. In relation to marital status, one study reported that the typical addicted gamer was single (Wenzel et al. 2009), while another study found video game addiction to be independent of educational background (Rehbein et al. 2010). Furthermore, it has been shown that unemployment may be a risk factor (Elliot et al. 2012), and is associated with high scores on video game addiction scales (Kim et al. 2008). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, there are no studies investigating the relationship between video game addiction and country of origin in national population-based studies. Thus this issue should be explored further. A summary of recent prevalence studies found that 674 Int J Ment Health Addiction (2016) 14:672–686 there was a higher prevalence of problematic video gaming in East Asian populations, as compared to Western European, North American and Australian populations (King et al. 2012). Migration has been suggested to have a stress-inducing effect that can lead to mental illness (Bhugra and Jones 2001), but the picture is mixed and an effect of immigrant robustness has also been found, where immigrants are protected against mental health problems (Algeria et al. 2008). Case studies have reported that moving country can be a factor in excessive online gaming as (...truncated)