Video games induce specific addictive behaviors studied by current research
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Current scientific literature and reviews investigate video game addiction as part of digital addiction, validating psychometric assessment scales and identifying structural characteristics and predictors associated with gaming disorder.
Digital addiction, encompassing problematic use of the internet, smartphones, gaming, and social media, has emerged as a growing global public health concern. This narrative review synthesises current evidence on the epidemiology, neurobiological underpinnings, diagnostic challenges, health consequences, and management strategies for digital addiction. Prevalence estimates vary widely, with higher rates reported in low- and middle-income countries and among adolescents and university students. Neuroimaging and neurochemical studies demonstrate alterations in reward pathways and prefrontal control networks, mirroring mechanisms seen in substance use disorders (SUDs). Clinically, digital addiction contributes to sleep disruption, visual strain, musculoskeletal problems, psychiatric comorbidities, impaired academic and occupational functioning, and increased risk behaviours. Diagnosis remains challenging due to the absence of universally accepted criteria, though instruments such as Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT), the Smartphone Addiction Scale (SAS), and newer culturally adapted tools show promise. Management approaches include early educational interventions, parental strategies, cognitive-behavioural therapy, mindfulness-based interventions, pharmacological options in select cases, and digital detox programmes, though evidence for long-term efficacy remains limited. Emerging artificial intelligence-driven psychoinformatics offers novel opportunities for early detection and personalised intervention. Overall, digital addiction represents a behavioural addiction with substantial biopsychosocial impacts, warranting greater clinical recognition, policy attention, and high-quality research to establish effective, scalable prevention and treatment strategies.
Gaming disorder has been described as an urgent public health problem and has garnered many systematic reviews of its associations with other health conditions. However, review methodology can contribute to bias in the conclusions, leading to research, policy, and patient care that are not truly evidence-based. This study followed a pre-registered protocol (PROSPERO 2018 CRD42018090651) with the objective of identifying reliable and methodologically-rigorous systematic reviews that examine the associations between gaming disorder and depression or anxiety in any population. We searched PubMed
cently played by using a 24-item checklist of structural characteristics, an adapted Flow State Scale, the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, and the Game Addiction Scale. Results: The study revealed decreases in general happiness had the strongest role in predicting increases in gaming addiction. One of the nine factors of the flow experience was a significant predictor of gaming addiction – perceptions of time being altered during play. The structural characteristic that significantly predicted addiction was its social element with increased sociability being associated with higher levels of addictive-like experiences. Overall, the structural characteristics of video games, elements of the flow experience, and general happiness accounted for 49.2% of the total variance in Game Addiction Scale levels. Conclusions: Implications for interventions are discussed, particularly with regard to making players more aware of time passing and in capitalising on benefits of social features of video game play to guard against addictive-like tendencies among video game players.
Keywords: video game addiction, structural characteristics of video games, happiness, flow Introduction
Video game playing is prevalent across many cultures with a wide range of different types, genres, and interfaces from which to choose. These media have been subjected to an increasing number of studies concerning the adverse effects of video game play that may entail cases of video game addiction, for instance ( Griffiths, Kuss & King, 2012 ; Griffiths & Meredith, 2009 ; Kuss & Griffiths, 2012a ; 2012b ). It has been argued that to be addicted to video games, six core components need to be experienced by the player ( Griffiths, 2008 ), namely salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict and relapse. Salience is evident when the playing of the video game becomes the single most important thing in a person's life, often resulting in cravings and total preoccupation with the activity. Mood mo
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