BackgroundA need exists to increase our understanding of the association between maladaptive personality traits, psychopathological symptoms, game preference, and different types of video game use. In the present study, we used a person-centered approach to identify different subtypes of video game players and we explored how they differ in personality profiles, clinical symptoms, and video game usage.MethodsWe assessed problematic gaming via the nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale and self-reported screen time playing video games in a sample of 366 adolescents and young adult gamers. Participants also completed measures on maladaptive personality domains (Personality Inventory for DSM-5 Brief Form), alexithymia (Toronto Alexithymia Scale—20 items), and psychopathological symptoms (DSM-5 Self-Rated Level 1 Cross-Cutting Symptom Measure) and reported which genre of video games they preferred.ResultsUsing a person-centered, cluster-analytic approach, we identified four clusters of video game players (Occasional, Passionate, Preoccupied, and Disordered) presenting peculiar combinations of problematic gaming scores and time spent online playing video games. Non-problematic gamers (Occasional and Passionate) represented the majority of the sample (62.3% of the participants). Highly involved gamers who exhibited excessive screen time playing video games (Disordered gamers) presented the highest level of maladaptive personality traits and psychopathological symptoms, and were characterized by the greatest use of Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games.ConclusionThese results have clinical implications on suggesting the importance to determining whether or not problematic gaming activities reflect a dysfunctional emotion-focused coping strategy to avoid inner unpleasant emotional or a more generally compromised emotional and social functioning.

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Given the new risks and opportunities generated by the use of the Internet since childhood, it seems necessary to deepen the parental mediation strategies with which parents can protect their children from exposure to online risks, perpetration of inappropriate behaviours online and psychosocial risks associated with a dysfunctional use of the web. This scoping review aims to analyse the literature of the last ten years on the strategies and attitudes of parents towards online risks. Twenty-nine scientific documents about parental mediation outcomes on children’s use of digital tools have been examined. Literature has been investigated in the PubMed, PsycINFO and Scopus databases. Only studies with a paediatric population published in the last ten years (from 2009) have been selected. The results suggest that empathy and interest are protective factors towards the exposure and perpetration of online risks of children, without limiting the opportunities offered by the Web.

The importance of parents in mediating adolescents’ Internet use is documented by many studies in the literature. Very few, however, regard interventions to support parents in this role. We wanted to assess the feasibility and the early outcomes of an Internet-based parent educational group course aimed to support parents in adolescents’ media education. The intervention was conducted with two different groups of parents (N = 20, 75% women; mean age = 46.9 y; SD = 6.3) at different time-points. The intervention included five sessions, during which information about parental mediation strategies was provided and practical exercises based on the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) approach were proposed. The intervention generated greater awareness, openness and flexibility and increased parental familiarity with technological devices. Overall, the proposed web-based and group-based parent training model has shown good feasibility and promising early outcomes in supporting parents as Internet mediators.

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