Understanding the Psychological Dynamics of Online Gaming Among Rural Left-Behind Adolescents

Against the backdrop of China’s urban-rural dual structure and the pervasive integration of digital media into everyday life, online gaming has become an important means for rural left-behind adolescents to seek emotional support and identity recognition. Drawing on compensatory internet use theory, this study incorporated meaning in life into an extended Stimulus-Organism-Response framework to examine the psychological mechanisms linking gaming motivation, online gaming addiction, and media well-being. Using survey data from 489 rural left-behind adolescents in China, this quantitative survey study employed structural equation modeling to test these mechanisms. The findings showed that gaming motivation had a dual structure of approach-oriented compensation and avoidance-oriented escape, with avoidance-oriented motivation, but not approach-oriented motivation, significantly predicting online gaming addiction. Online gaming addiction partially offset the positive association between avoidance-oriented motivation and media well-being through a significant negative indirect effect. Moreover, search for meaning, but not presence of meaning, significantly buffered the negative association between online gaming addiction and media well-being. These findings highlighted the importance of meaning construction and social support in youth gaming interventions.