Video games addiction. A review
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.20882/adicciones.555Keywords:
addiction, dependency, video games, review, ADICCIONES, 2001Abstract
Video game addiction seems to be a widely accepted disorder. This work reviews in a critical manner the literature and the state of the art about this topic. The scarcity of works focused specifically on video game addiction, as well as the weakness of many of the investigations are commented as main conclusions. None of the studies makes explicit the model of addiction that constitutes its reference, and concepts are only seldom appropriately explained. Most of the works are based on general surveys of doubtful validity and reliability, while others are focused only on certain types of video machines, thus limiting the generalisation of their results. No valid and reliable diagnostic system is so far available to measure that presumed addiction, and the adaptations that have been proposed are not applicable to all video game systems or their psychometric properties are unknown. Certainly, a majority of works report that, for some subjects, video game use constitutes a problem. Nevertheless, the nature and the possible origins of this problem remain as unsolved questions. Finally, possible lines for future work are reviewed.References
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