Digital gaming during the COVID-19 pandemic: Examining the interplay of psychosocial problems, gaming motivations, and gaming disorder severity

IF 2.8 3区计算机科学 Q2 COMPUTER SCIENCE, CYBERNETICS

Entertainment Computing Pub Date : 2025-02-18 DOI:10.1016/j.entcom.2025.100933

Felix Reer

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The current study aimed to provide a deeper understanding of the factors underlying the development of addictive gaming (‘gaming disorder’, GD) during the COVID-19 pandemic. A path model was designed to examine the interplay of COVID-19-related fears, negative daily life impacts experienced during the pandemic, psychosocial problems (stress, depression/anxiety, loneliness), gaming motivations (escapism, coping, fantasy, and social motivations), and GD severity. The model was tested using an online survey administered to 504 German game users. It was found that gaming behaviors changed to a certain degree during the pandemic. Path modeling indicated that fear of COVID-19 and perceived negative daily life impacts may have played roles in the development of GD during the pandemic: they were associated with increased feelings of stress, depression/anxiety, and loneliness experienced during the pandemic, which, in turn, were (directly or indirectly) related to increased levels of GD severity. Gaming driven by escapism motives was identified as a significant predictor of GD severity and was found to mediate the relationship between stress and depression/anxiety and GD severity.

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COVID-19大流行期间的数字游戏：研究心理社会问题、游戏动机和游戏障碍严重程度的相互作用

目前的研究旨在更深入地了解COVID-19大流行期间成瘾性游戏（“游戏障碍”，GD）发展的潜在因素。设计了一个路径模型来研究与covid -19相关的恐惧、大流行期间经历的负面日常生活影响、社会心理问题（压力、抑郁/焦虑、孤独）、游戏动机（逃避、应对、幻想和社会动机）和焦虑严重程度之间的相互作用。该模型通过对504名德国游戏用户的在线调查进行了测试。研究发现，在疫情期间，游戏行为发生了一定程度的变化。路径建模表明，在大流行期间，对COVID-19的恐惧和感知到的负面日常生活影响可能在GD的发展中发挥了作用：它们与大流行期间经历的压力、抑郁/焦虑和孤独感的增加有关，而这些又（直接或间接）与GD严重程度的增加有关。逃避动机驱动的游戏是焦虑严重程度的重要预测因子，并介导压力、抑郁/焦虑与焦虑严重程度之间的关系。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Entertainment Computing Computer Science-Human-Computer Interaction

CiteScore

5.90

自引率

7.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： Entertainment Computing publishes original, peer-reviewed research articles and serves as a forum for stimulating and disseminating innovative research ideas, emerging technologies, empirical investigations, state-of-the-art methods and tools in all aspects of digital entertainment, new media, entertainment computing, gaming, robotics, toys and applications among researchers, engineers, social scientists, artists and practitioners. Theoretical, technical, empirical, survey articles and case studies are all appropriate to the journal.