Video-game addiction: a brief psychological review.

Abstract

For many, the concept of videogame addiction seems far-fetched particularly if their concepts of addiction involve the taking of drugs. This paper overviews the small but growing area of videogame addiction including online videogame addiction. Worldwide, there are few practitioners that specialise in the treatment of videogame addiction and this may be because there are so few players who are genuinely addicted to playing videogames. However, the Internet may be facilitatingexcessive online game playing as evidenced by the increasing number of specialist addiction treatment clinics for online videogame addiction. Taking all factors and variables into account and by considering the prevalence of play, the prevalence of serious adverse effects on health is relatively rare based on the empirical evidence to date. An overview of the available literature appears to indicate that adverse effects are likely to affect only a very small subgroup of players and that frequent players are the most at-risk from developing health problems. Those that it does affect will experience subtle, minor, and temporary effects that resolve spontaneously with decreased frequency of play.