Internet gaming addiction as a risk factor for the development of Internet gaming disorder: cross-sectional observational study

Abstract Objectives The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence and possible correlations between Internet gaming addiction and Internet gaming disorder in a population of Italian students. Methods An online survey was conducted from 28 October 2022 to 5 November 2022, in collaboration with the Italian website “Skuola.net”. Students aged 10–25 years had the opportunity to participate by answering an ad hoc questionnaire designed to investigate their knowledge and attitudes towards the Internet and electronic devices for playing games, through a link on the homepage. Results A total of 1586 responses were received, of which 976 were from male individuals and 610 were female individuals. Most of the participants (756) were aged between 14 and 17 years and came from Northern Italy (579) and Central Italy (611). In relation to the time spent playing video games, 473 (29.8%) students play video games on a normal weekday for more than 3 h per day. Of these, 121 (7.6%) play for more than 8 h per day, 241 (15.2%) from 3 to 5 h per day and 111 (7.0%) from 5 to 8 h per day; 523 (32.9%) children play video games more than 12 h in a week. Students in Northern Italy spend less time playing video games per day than students in Central Italy (OR 0.691; 95% CI 0.476–1.004; p < 0. 001) and during the week (OR 0.522; 95% CI 0.324–0.841; p = 0.013). The respondents claim that time spent playing online games worsened their interest in school (579, 36.5%), their school engagement (569, 35.9%) and their school performance (534, 33.6%). Nine hundred three (56.9%) report that it is important to play video games well, 680 (42.9) report that it is important to play video games to meet new people, 1010 (63.7%) report that it is important to play video games to spend time with their friends, 1078 (67.9%) report that it is important to play video games to distract themselves from everyday life and 827 (52.2%) report that it is important for them to continually improve their performance on video games. Conclusions These initial observational results indicate that a preventive and informative action towards adolescents, families and schools should be promoted as a matter of urgency, with the aim of making all those involved aware of the effects mentioned above.