Gamers in Real Life: Internet Gamer Typologies and Their Association With Problematic Gaming and Health Outcomes

IF 4.3 Q1 PSYCHOLOGY, MULTIDISCIPLINARY

Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies Pub Date : 2025-04-09 DOI:10.1155/hbe2/2368683

Lorelle Bowditch, Janine Chapman, Tania Signal, Anjum Naweed

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Abstract

Internet gaming is a popular pastime, which has surged in popularity in light of COVID-19. While positive outcomes are common, some gamers experience problems associated with their gaming. For this reason, understanding how factors can influence healthy versus unhealthy internet gaming outcomes is crucial. This study developed gamer typologies based on boredom proneness, escapism, and coping style. Typologies were compared on problematic gaming outcomes, gaming behaviours, engagement, and health and wellbeing–related variables. Cluster analysis of a diverse international sample (N = 913) identified three distinct profiles: immersed, balanced, and detached gamers. Detached gamers reported the highest boredom proneness, escapism, and disengaged coping. They also had worse health and wellbeing–related outcomes than other clusters, despite engaging in similar gaming behaviours to immersed gamers. These novel findings emphasise the importance of an engaged coping style and highlight the risk of using solely addiction-based measures to identify problematic internet gaming, which may overlook potentially adaptive behaviours.

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现实生活中的游戏玩家：网络游戏玩家类型及其与问题游戏和健康结果的关联

网络游戏是受新型冠状病毒感染症（COVID-19）影响而人气飙升的娱乐活动。虽然积极的结果很常见，但有些玩家会遇到与他们的游戏相关的问题。因此，了解影响健康与不健康网络游戏结果的因素是至关重要的。该研究基于无聊倾向、逃避主义和应对方式开发了玩家类型。我们比较了问题游戏结果、游戏行为、参与度以及健康和幸福相关变量的类型。对不同国际样本（N = 913）的聚类分析确定了三种不同的特征：沉浸式、平衡式和超然式玩家。超然型玩家最容易感到无聊、逃避现实和不投入地应对。尽管他们的游戏行为与沉浸式玩家相似，但与其他群体相比，他们的健康和幸福相关的结果也更差。这些新发现强调了参与式应对方式的重要性，并强调了仅仅使用基于成瘾的方法来识别有问题的网络游戏的风险，这可能会忽视潜在的适应性行为。

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来源期刊

Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies Social Sciences-Social Sciences (all)

CiteScore

17.20

自引率

8.70%

发文量

期刊介绍： Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies is an interdisciplinary journal dedicated to publishing high-impact research that enhances understanding of the complex interactions between diverse human behavior and emerging digital technologies.