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Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games

Date Submitted: Sep 17, 2021
Date Accepted: Apr 22, 2022
Date Submitted to PubMed: Apr 26, 2022

The final, peer-reviewed published version of this preprint can be found here:

Video Game Addictive Symptom Level, Use Intensity, and Hedonic Experience: Cross-sectional Questionnaire Study

Walia B, Kim J, Ijere I, Sanders S

Video Game Addictive Symptom Level, Use Intensity, and Hedonic Experience: Cross-sectional Questionnaire Study

JMIR Serious Games 2022;10(2):e33661

DOI: 10.2196/33661

PMID: 35471995

PMCID: 9227790

Video Game Addictive Symptom Level, Use Intensity, and Hedonic Experience: An Empirical Analysis of a Novel Survey Instrument

  • Bhavneet Walia; 
  • Jeeyoon Kim; 
  • Ignatius Ijere; 
  • Shane Sanders

ABSTRACT

We conducted a survey of 835 individuals who regularly play video games to determine the relationship between Video Gaming (VG) intensity of use and hedonic experience of the user. We divide the sample into four quartiles by self-reported VG addictive symptom level (from the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale) and conduct polynomial regressions separately for each quartile. We find that the higher VG addictive symptom level groups experience a U-shaped (curvilinear) relationship between hedonic experience and intensity of play, whereas groups with lower VG addictive symptom levels exhibit no such relationship. Due to sensitization and tolerance, we conclude that high-symptom groups experience frustration and disappointment until achieving excessive dopamine release, at which point their hedonic experience improves in additional play. Conversely, low-symptom groups experience no such fall-and-rise pattern. Members of the latter group play the game for the direct experience; therefore, their hedonic experience is more directly related to events occurring in the game than to the increasingly-elusive pursuit of excessive dopamine release. We also find that high-symptom groups spend substantially more time and money to support VG use and are much more likely to engage in VG use at the expense of other important activities, such as work, sleep, and eating.


 Citation

Please cite as:

Walia B, Kim J, Ijere I, Sanders S

Video Game Addictive Symptom Level, Use Intensity, and Hedonic Experience: Cross-sectional Questionnaire Study

JMIR Serious Games 2022;10(2):e33661

DOI: 10.2196/33661

PMID: 35471995

PMCID: 9227790

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