Internet Gaming Disorder: Investigating the Clinical Relevance of a New Phenomenon
Open accessAbstract
OBJECTIVE: The American Psychiatric Association (APA) identified Internet gaming disorder as a new potential psychiatric disorder and has recognized that little is known about the prevalence, validity, or cross-cultural robustness of proposed Internet gaming disorder criteria. In response to this gap in our understanding, the present study, a first for this research topic, estimated the period prevalence of this new potential psychiatric disorder using APA guidance, examined the validity of its proposed indicators, evaluated reliability cross-culturally and across genders, compared it to gold-standard research on gambling addiction and problem gaming, and estimated its impact on physical, social, and mental health. METHOD: Four survey studies (N=18,932) with large international cohorts employed an open-science methodology wherein the analysis plans for confirmatory hypotheses were registered prior to data collection. RESULTS: Among those who played games, more than 2 out of 3 did not report any symptoms of Internet gaming disorder, and findings showed that a very small proportion of the general population (between 0.3% and 1.0%) might qualify for a potential acute diagnosis of Internet gaming disorder. Comparison to gambling disorder revealed that Internet-based games may be significantly less addictive than gambling and similarly dysregulating as electronic games more generally. CONCLUSIONS: The evidence linking Internet gaming disorder to game engagement was strong, but links to physical, social, and mental health outcomes were decidedly mixed.
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Higher-quality studies of problem gaming tend to report much lower prevalence rates, typically below 1%.
“Higher-quality studies (e.g., stringent sampling, cross-validation with quality of life and impairment measures) tend to report much lower prevalence rates 173 , typically below 1%.”
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- Authors
- Przybylski, A. K., Weinstein, N., & Murayama, K.
- Affiliations
- Kochi University of Technology (JP)
- Venue
- American Journal of Psychiatry
- Published
- 2017-03-01
- Volume
- 174
- Issue
- 3
- Pages
- 230-236
- ISSN
- 0002-953X (ISSN-L)
- 1535-7228
- OpenAlex
- W2527828900
- Cited by
- 372
- References
- 24
- Citations by year
- 2026: 21 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 39 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 41 · 2021: 54 · 2020: 40 · 2019: 33 · 2018: 42 · 2017: 25 · 2016: 1
- FWCI
- 96.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- American Journal of Psychiatry (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- CentAUR (University of Reading) (acceptedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (acceptedVersion)
- ORCA Online Research @Cardiff (Cardiff University) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- University of Oxford
- Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (15H05401)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Gambling Behavior and Treatments
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
- Keywords
- internet gaming disorder, period prevalence, diagnostic validity, gender differences, problem gaming, physical health outcomes, social functioning, mental health outcomes, video games
- MeSH terms
- Acute Disease, Adolescent, Adult, Aged, Canada, Cross-Sectional Studies, Cross-Cultural Comparison, Female, Gambling, Germany, Humans, Male, Middle Aged, Surveys and Questionnaires, Societies, Medical, United States, Cohort Studies, Behavior, Addictive, Video Games, Internet, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Young Adult, Checklist, Self Report
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