Problematic Gaming and Academic Achievement: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

The extant research on the relationship between problematic gaming (PG) and academic achievement (AA) has been summarized in a recent systematic review. However, the data was not statistically synthesized, imposing a limit to their conclusions. The current study aimed to address this limitation by conducting a new systematic review and meta-analysis to synthesize the data. A systematic review of the relationship between PG and AA concluded that the findings are mixed and there are limited longitudinal studies. Specifically, it is currently unclear if PG is a risk factor or negative consequence of AA. For example, individuals with PG might spend a disproportionate amount of time on games, neglecting their studies and leading to lower AA. Alternatively, individuals with lower AA might engage in PG to escape negative moods or to satisfy their unmet need for achievement. A comprehensive search was conducted on the databases PsycInfo, PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science from inception to 25 March 2025. The data was analyzed using Meta-Essentials and the random effects model was used to obtain the pooled estimate of the effect size. A total of 23 articles containing 25 effect sizes were included (total participant N = 16067). An overall pooled effect size of -0.17 was found. However, significant heterogeneity was found across the effect sizes and it could be explained by study design. Specifically, longitudinal effect sizes (AA → PG) had the largest effect size (r = -0.29), followed by cross-sectional effect sizes (r = -0.18) and longitudinal effect sizes (PG → AA) (r = -0.09). This suggested that PG is more likely a negative consequence than a risk factor of AA. Limitations include the small impact of publication bias and the exclusion of a number of relevant articles without effect sizes. Future research could conduct more longitudinal studies to examine the causal relationships between the variables (i.e., both PG → AA and AA → PG) and examine potential mediators like the escape motivation to understand the mechanisms underlying the AA → PG relationship.