The association between problematic online gaming and perceived stress: The moderating effect of psychological resilience

Abstract

Background and aims: Vulnerability to stress appears to be a potential predisposing factor for developing specific internet-use disorders, such as Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). Studies investigating the protective effect of psychological resilience against the impact of perceived stress on IGD and weekly gameplay have yet to be reported in the existing literature. The aim of this study was to examine the potential moderating relationships between perceived stress and online gaming (more specifically operationalized as IGD and weekly gameplay) with psychological resilience. Methods: An online survey was administered to 605 participants (males = 82%, M age = 24.01 years, SD age = 6.11). A multivariate multiple regression model was applied to test for the possible contribution of perceived stress and psychological resilience to weekly gameplay and IGD. Results: Perceived stress was associated with higher scores of IGD, whereas psychological resilience was related to lower scores of IGD. In addition, the combination of having higher perceived stress and lower level of psychological resilience was associated with a particularly high hours of gameplay per week. Discussion and conclusions: These findings further support the importance of personal traits (perceived stress and psychological resilience) in online gaming (IGD severity and weekly gameplay), and also emphasize the unique moderating relationship between perceived stress and weekly gameplay with lack of resilience. Enhancing psychological resilience to decrease the likelihood of online gamers who experience higher level of stress from spending more hours per week gaming is recommended.

Heightened Levels of Maladaptive Daydreaming Are Associated With COVID-19 Lockdown, Pre-existing Psychiatric Diagnoses, and Intensified Psychological Dysfunctions: A Multi-country Study

“…Moreover, internet gaming disorder was included in Section III of the DSM-5 as a condition for further study. Internet gaming disorder was said to originate as a coping mechanism against stress (53), and stress reduction was identified as an important motivational driver of excessive online gaming (54,55). In a recent study, about half of the studied student sample reported that their gaming behavior had increased during the COVID-19 lockdown period and that gaming behavior was associated with examination-related stress (56).…”

Associations Among Resilience, Stress, Depression, and Internet Gaming Disorder in Young Adults

“…Furthermore, resilience was reportedly lower among adolescents with IGD according to questionnaire assessments [15]. Its moderating role in the association between stress and IGD severity was demonstrated by an online questionnaire survey [23]. However, the difference in resilience was not evaluated among adults with IGD based on diagnostic interviewing.…”

“…However, the difference in resilience was not evaluated among adults with IGD based on diagnostic interviewing. Further, resilience included a variety of personal characteristics, such as acceptance, problem-solving skills, capacity to recover, self-regulation, personal competence, and self-efficacy [23,24]. Which characteristics of resilience plays an important role involving development of IGD and should be intervened firstly has not been well-evaluated.…”

Gaming Disorder: How to Translate Behavioral Neuroscience Into Public Health Advances

“…Studies report the symptom severity of GD to be associated with increased perceived stress [78][79][80][81][82][83] and emotional trauma or maltreatment during childhood [84,85]. Furthermore, Canale et al [79] could show that stress was positively correlated with hours of game play per week. As known from substance use disorder neuroscience, altered stress processing may be associated with neural alterations in the brain's stress system which includes executive control and reward networks [86].…”

“…Stress reduction and stress control have been deployed as parts of selective intervention programs for GD and Internet use disorder to school students [30••]. In addition, reduced resilience and self-control have been identified as mediators between stress and problematic gaming behavior [79,92], and thus might have protective effects.…”