Depression and anxiety symptoms associated with internet gaming disorder before and during the COVID-19 pandemic: A longitudinal study
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Background: The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has profoundly impacted aspects of human life globally. Playing videogames has been encouraged by several organizations to help individuals cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and associated restrictive measures. This longitudinal study was the first to examine gaming in the context of the pandemic and its association with depressive and anxiety symptoms. Methods: The sample comprised 1,778 children and adolescents (50.7% male) who were part of the Project of School Mental Health in Southwest China. Data were collected at two-time intervals: before the COVID-19 pandemic (October to November 2019 – [T1]) and during the COVID-19 pandemic (April to May 2020 – [T2]). Data were collected on perceived COVID-19 impacts, videogame use, Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), and depressive and anxiety symptoms. Cross-lagged panel models were computed to examine longitudinal relationships. Results: The results indicated that both videogame use and IGD increased significantly for adolescents at T2. The cross-lagged panel model results suggested that depressive and anxiety symptoms at T1 positively predicted IGD and videogame use at T2 (especially for boys), but not inversely. Perceived COVID-19 impacts mediated the relationship between depressive and anxiety symptoms at T1 and IGD at T2. Conclusion: Children and adolescents both increased videogame use at T2, but only adolescents significantly increased IGD severity at T2. The findings supported the compensatory hypothesis, and are consistent with the Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution model as individual responses to COVID-19 may function as a mediator between personal predisposing variables and IGD.
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Gaming behaviour was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic as young people spent more time on internet games to cope with psychological distress.
“It was worth noting that this addictive behaviour of games was exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic as young people are spending more time on internet games to cope with their psychological distress (i.e.anxiety, depression and stress) (Teng, Pontes, Nie, Griffiths, & Guo, 2021;Wang, Liu, Zhang, & Zhang, 2022).”
From Online Self-Help Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Module for College Students with Higher Gaming Disorder During COVID-19: A Pilot Study (2023) · cites this paper as Teng, Pontes, Nie, Griffiths, & Guo, 2021
The Conclusions and implications section (page not supplied) reports increased videogame use among both children and adolescents, but increased gaming-disorder severity only among adolescents. It also reports that pre-pandemic depression and anxiety predicted later gaming and interprets this as consistent with coping; it does not establish that distress caused young people to spend more time gaming, or that addictive behaviour worsened across both age groups. (LLM, conf=0.88)
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- Authors
- Teng, Z., Pontes, H. M., Nie, Q., Griffiths, M. D., & Guo, C.
- Affiliations
- Southwest University (CN)
- Birkbeck, University of London (GB)
- Nottingham Trent University (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Teng, Zhaojun
- Guo, Cheng
- Venue
- Journal of Behavioral Addictions
- Publisher
- Akademiai Kiado Zrt.
- Published
- 2021-04-16
- Volume
- 10
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 169-180
- ISSN
- 2062-5871 (ISSN-L)
- 2063-5303
- PMC
- PMC8969853
- OpenAlex
- W3135707376
- Cited by
- 302
- References
- 17
- Citations by year
- 2026: 31 · 2025: 59 · 2024: 55 · 2023: 72 · 2022: 57 · 2021: 28
- FWCI
- 67.38
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Journal of Behavioral Addictions (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- BIROn (Birkbeck, University of London) (acceptedVersion)
- Nottingham Trent University's Institutional Repository (Nottingham Trent Repository) (acceptedVersion)
- Repository of the Academy's Library (Library of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences) (acceptedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Funders
- China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (2018M640892)
- Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (SWU1909106)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Impact of Technology on Adolescents
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › COVID-19 and Mental Health
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology
- Keywords
- internet gaming disorder, COVID-19 pandemic, depression, anxiety, adolescents, children, compensatory hypothesis, coping
- MeSH terms
- Internet Addiction Disorder, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, Adolescent, Anxiety Disorders, Child, China, Depressive Disorder, Humans, Longitudinal Studies, Severity of Illness Index, Video Games, Pandemics
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