Gaming disorder (video game addiction): signs, cutting down and what helps

“Gaming addiction” is everyday language; the diagnosis listed in the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) is gaming disorder. Whether the gaming is online or offline, all three of the following must be present: impaired control over gaming, such as when to start, how long to play and when to stop; giving gaming increasing priority over other interests and daily activities; and continuing or escalating gaming despite negative consequences such as family conflict, falling grades or health problems. On top of that, it must cause significant distress or impairment in personal, family, social, educational or occupational life (WHO, 2024).

A diagnosis is usually considered when this pattern has lasted at least 12 months (WHO, 2020), but if it is severe, for example gaming for days at a time without a break or with major effects on daily life and health, and all the other requirements are met, it can be diagnosed after a shorter period such as 6 months (WHO, 2024). WHO also notes that gaming disorder affects only a small proportion of people who game (WHO, 2020).

ICD-11 places gaming disorder alongside gambling disorder among the “disorders due to addictive behaviours”, and lists separately “hazardous gaming”, a pattern that falls short of a disorder but raises the risk of harm to health (WHO, 2026). Hazardous gaming is not a mental disorder; it is classed as a health-behaviour problem that may call for attention and advice from a health professional (WHO, 2024). ICD-11 was adopted at the World Health Assembly in May 2019 and came into effect on 1 January 2022 (WHO, 2019). There is no “internet addiction” or “smartphone addiction” among ICD-11’s category names (WHO, 2026).

The American Psychiatric Association’s DSM-5-TR lists “Internet Gaming Disorder” not as an official diagnosis but as a condition needing further research, and gambling disorder is the only behavioural addiction it recognises. The proposed condition covers gaming only, not general use of the internet, social media or smartphones, or online gambling (American Psychiatric Association, 2023). Gaming disorder differs from gambling disorder in that no money or valuables are staked (WHO, 2024). Problems with phones and social media in general are covered in smartphone overuse, and gambling for money in gambling.

Korean government documents use a term that translates as “game-use disorder” (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 2019). When the Youth Protection Act was amended in 2021, “over-immersion” was written alongside “addiction” to take account of the negative stigma of the word addiction (Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, 2021). mind.io does not offer a gaming test, and this guide is not a diagnosis. It sets out, from research and official sources, the difference between heavy play and a disorder, how common it is, why it happens, the disease-code debate, what helps and what has weak support, and where to get help.

WHO’s diagnostic guidance says that gaming every day as part of a routine, or gaming to build skill, change your mood, ease boredom or spend time with friends, is not on its own grounds for gaming disorder. Long and frequent gaming in groups who play a lot, such as teenage boys, or at certain times, such as the holidays, is not a sign of a disorder either if the other features are missing (WHO, 2024). Still, it advises keeping an eye on whether gaming takes up time at the expense of other daily activities, and whether gaming habits have changed your physical or mental health or your relationships (WHO, 2020).

In a study of 442 online gamers’ answers, thinking about games often, playing for longer and longer, and feeling a buzz while playing grouped together as non-pathological “engagement”, whereas conflict over gaming, withdrawal symptoms when unable to play, cutting down and then getting drawn back in, and gaming becoming the centre of behaviour grouped together as “addiction” (Charlton & Danforth, 2007). The American Psychiatric Association also describes researchers’ view that whether the person is distressed by their gaming may be the key to telling passionate engagement from pathology (American Psychiatric Association, 2023).

Hours played are not a diagnostic criterion. In a survey of 5,222 gamers, the correlation between gaming time and problematic gaming was weak to moderate (r = .26, .21), and the authors concluded that time alone is an unreliable way to pick out problems (Király et al., 2017). A meta-analysis of 184 studies also found only a moderate correlation of 0.40 between gaming disorder scale scores and playing time (Yoon et al., 2021). That does not mean time is irrelevant. In a meta-analysis of 39 follow-up studies (37,042 people), playing time was the strongest predictor of later gaming disorder (Zhuang et al., 2023), and in a 2-year study of 2,319 Korean primary and middle school students, playing online games for 4 hours or more a day was linked with becoming, or staying, high-risk on a screening questionnaire (Jeong et al., 2021). Risk tends to rise with longer play, but there is no number of hours at which a disorder begins.

What matters more than hours is how life changes. People with gaming disorder may try many times to cut down, on their own or because others insist, and fail, and when someone else makes them stop they may become low, defiant, or verbally or physically aggressive (WHO, 2024). The American Academy of Pediatrics lists as signs being obsessed with gaming; being sad, irritable or anxious when gaming is taken away; wanting more and more and being unable to cut down or quit; losing interest in activities once enjoyed; lying about time spent gaming; and gaming to relieve a bad mood, and it advises checking that gaming is not crowding out important things like homework, exercise and sleep (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2020).

An online “gaming addiction test” score cannot give you a diagnosis. Research has used 32 screening and assessment tools for gaming disorder (in 320 studies with 462,249 people); they covered the diagnostic criteria to differing degrees, and none was clearly better than the rest (King et al., 2020). In one Korean clinical cohort, when psychologists and psychiatrists interviewed children and adolescents and their carers, 61 met the DSM-5 criteria only and 12 also met the ICD-11 criteria, so the ICD-11 definition, which requires impaired functioning, was the stricter one (Jo et al., 2019). mind.io has no gaming test. The depression check-in (PHQ-9) is not a gaming test, but it looks over the past 2 weeks at depression, which often comes with gaming problems.

A meta-analysis of 53 studies (226,247 people in 17 countries) put the prevalence of gaming disorder, as estimated with questionnaires, at 3.05%. Counting only studies with stricter sampling, such as stratified random samples, gave 1.96%, though with a very wide margin of error. Men were affected about 2.5 times as often as women; which screening tool was used explained 77% of the differences between studies; and adolescent samples, lower cut-offs and smaller samples gave higher figures (Stevens et al., 2021). WHO’s diagnostic guidance also says it appears most common among adolescent and young adult males aged 12 to 20, and less common in adults (WHO, 2024).

Another meta-analysis of 61 studies (227,665 people in 29 countries) found 3.3%, but this fell to 2.4% when only the 28 representative samples were counted and to 1.4% after adjusting for publication bias (Kim et al., 2022). In four large international surveys with pre-registered analysis plans (18,932 people), only 0.3-1.0% of the general population might qualify for a diagnosis under the DSM-5 criteria, and more than two in three of those who played games reported no symptoms at all (Przybylski et al., 2017).

The figure also depends on which criteria are used. Studies using the DSM-5 criteria averaged 7.9% across 17 studies, while the 5 studies using the ICD-11 criteria, which require impaired functioning, averaged about 3% (Zhou et al., 2024). A meta-analysis of adolescents and young adults alone found 9.9%, with very large differences between studies (Gao et al., 2022). A review of studies up to May 2016 found that individual studies ranged from 0.7% to 27.5%, and that region made little difference (Mihara & Higuchi, 2017). By contrast, a meta-analysis of 26 East Asian studies found 12%, but 6% in representative samples only, and many of its studies surveyed gamers only or used convenience samples (Liao et al., 2022). So it is hard to sum it up in a single figure such as “one in ten teenagers is addicted to games”.

In the Korea Creative Content Agency’s 2025 survey (12,456 students from grade 4 to grade 12 in 212 schools nationwide, weighted), 3.2% of all students who answered were classed by the agency’s own scale as “problematic gamers” (boys 4.7%, girls 1.6%), with middle school students relatively higher at 4.0%. Of the students, 88.6% played games, and 14.0% were “adaptive gamers” who made good use of games, could control their play when needed and had no over-immersion problems (Korea Creative Content Agency, 2026). These groups are not diagnoses but results on the agency’s own scale.

In Korea’s 2025 survey on smartphone overdependence, 39.3% of people who played games on their smartphones (61.9% of adolescents) said they found it hard to control their gaming as they wished. This is one question about how people see themselves, not a diagnosis, and the survey’s overdependence risk figures measure smartphone use in general, not gaming (MSIT & NIA, 2026).

In Japan, applying an ICD-11-based screening test to a random sample of 5,096 people aged 10 to 29 gave an estimated prevalence of 5.1% (men 7.6%, women 2.5%), but this was a pilot estimate from a screening test, not diagnostic interviews (Higuchi et al., 2021). In a survey of 11-, 13- and 15-year-olds in around a dozen European countries and regions that added gaming questions, 12% were “at risk of problematic gaming” (boys 16%, girls 7%), but this risk group was counted with DSM-5-based self-report questions and is not a diagnosis (Boniel-Nissim et al., 2024).

Gaming disorder commonly occurs together with substance use problems, mood disorders, anxiety disorders, ADHD, obsessive-compulsive disorder and sleep problems, and problematic gaming is more common in people with autism and ADHD (WHO, 2024). Occurring together does not mean one causes the other. Pooling 21 studies (5,025 people), about one in three people with internet gaming disorder (32%) also had depression, though the figure varied widely between studies (Ostinelli et al., 2021).

Which comes first? In a meta-analysis of 30 follow-up studies (28,782 people), gaming disorder and depression each predicted the other later on, and anxiety and loneliness were linked with later gaming disorder, but gaming disorder was not linked with later anxiety. The effects were small to moderate, though, and the studies were observational, so they cannot establish cause (Amendola et al., 2025). A study that followed 366 Korean primary school children for a year also found that depression and gaming problems predicted each other (Jeong et al., 2019). If symptoms of depression are also present, it helps to look at both.

ADHD symptoms and gaming disorder symptoms were moderately related, but mostly in one-off surveys (Koncz et al., 2023), and although it is unclear which comes first, researchers recommend also checking for ADHD when someone is assessed for gaming problems (Dullur et al., 2021). See also adult ADHD symptoms. Gaming to escape a painful reality often went together with gaming disorder, depression, anxiety, loneliness and social anxiety (Kiszka et al., 2026). On the other side, in a meta-analysis of follow-up studies, self-control, friendships and the relationship with parents were protective (Zhuang et al., 2023). Japan’s national specialist hospital explains that real-life problems that make games tempting, such as pressure over moving up a year, entrance exams, family conflict or feeling there is no place for you at school, are often in the background (Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, n.d.a).

Gaming problems sometimes fade on their own and sometimes last. In a German panel of 902 people aged 14 and over, adults included, surveyed three times over 2 years, only 9 of all 902 (1%) showed problem symptoms every time, and no one met the addiction criteria all three times (Scharkow et al., 2014), whereas a Norwegian study of adolescents estimated that video game addiction had a 35% chance of persisting over 2 years, so for a substantial number it did not go away by itself (Krossbakken et al., 2018). The course varies, but it tended to be more stable in adolescents than in adults (Mihara & Higuchi, 2017).

Game design may also play a part. Spending on loot boxes, items bought with real money whose contents are decided at random, has been linked with problem gambling. After a large survey of 7,422 gamers reported this (Zendle & Cairns, 2018), a synthesis of studies found links with both problem gambling (12 of 13 publications positive, mean r = .27) and problem gaming (6 surveys, mean r = .40). Which comes first is still unknown, though, so it cannot be said that loot boxes cause gambling or gaming problems (Spicer et al., 2022). Since 22 March 2024, Korean law has required game companies to disclose loot box odds, a transparency rule to protect players (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 2024). The link with gambling is covered in gambling.

Whether gaming disorder should be treated as a disease has been hotly debated among researchers. Ahead of WHO’s decision, 26 researchers agreed in an open debate paper that gaming problems deserve attention, but argued that the research base was of low quality, that the criteria borrowed too heavily from substance use and gambling, and that there was no consensus on symptoms and assessment. They worried in particular about children and adolescents being wrongly diagnosed, and about stigma for the many children who play games as part of a healthy life (Aarseth et al., 2017). In a 2018 reply, researchers on the same side again agreed that some people’s gaming is linked with problems in their lives, but saw the evidence as still too weak to make it a formal disorder (van Rooij et al., 2018).

Those in favour argued that many people who need treatment remain hidden, and that the problem has to be clearly defined before it can be diagnosed, treated and prevented (Saunders et al., 2017). Others replied that because the ICD-11 criteria explicitly require gaming to impair functioning, they guard against treating heavy play alone as an illness (Billieux et al., 2017). Korean researchers used the analogy that the existence of alcohol use disorder does not stigmatise healthy drinkers, and argued that a formal diagnosis would help standardise research and treatment (Lee et al., 2017). WHO explains that its decision was based on reviews of the evidence and a consensus of experts from different disciplines and regions (WHO, 2020). The American Psychiatric Association also notes that whether gaming should be classed as an addiction or mental disorder is the subject of much debate (American Psychiatric Association, 2023).

In Korea, a public-private council led by the Office for Government Policy Coordination was set up in July 2019 to discuss whether to introduce the code. It has 22 members: 14 from medicine, the games industry, law, civic groups and related fields, and 8 from government (Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 2019). Whether to add the disease code will be decided by the National Statistics Committee on the basis of the council’s decision, and the 10th Korean Standard Classification of Diseases (KCD-10), which will reflect ICD-11, is planned to take effect in 2031 (Statistics Korea, 2024). In February 2025, Statistics Korea said it had not yet decided whether to introduce the code (Statistics Korea, 2025a), and the 9th classification (KCD-9), in use since January 2026, was a regular revision that kept the existing ICD-10 framework (Statistics Korea, 2025b). Statistics Korea was renamed in October 2025 (Statistics Korea, 2025c).

A 2025 report by the National Assembly Research Service described Korea’s position as gaming disorder having “a diagnosis but no disease code”. According to the report, the Ministry of Health and Welfare wants the code introduced to build a system for diagnosis and treatment, while the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism opposes it, citing stigma for gaming in general, lower industry competitiveness and harm to content exports. The council had met 13 times by February 2025 without reaching a conclusion, and clinicians often diagnose and treat patients who come with gaming problems under other diagnoses such as ADHD, depression or impulse control disorder (National Assembly Research Service, 2025).

The Korea Creative Content Agency, which comes under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, followed the same people for 5 years in a panel study and found no one who stayed in its own scale’s “over-immersion” group for 2 years in a row; it interpreted problem gaming as likely to be a passing phenomenon that fades on its own (Korea Creative Content Agency, 2025a). Its explanatory booklet went as far as saying that playing a lot does not cause an illness like addiction (Korea Creative Content Agency, 2025b). But the study’s “over-immersion” group had only 12 children and adolescents and 19 adults in the first year (Korea Creative Content Agency, 2025b), and it was defined with a gaming-behaviour scale developed in Korea, not an ICD-11 diagnosis (Korea Creative Content Agency, 2025a). Given that a study abroad found that for a substantial number the problem did not go away on its own over 2 years (Krossbakken et al., 2018), these results alone cannot settle the question.

The strongest evidence is for psychological therapy such as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT). A 2026 overview of systematic reviews concluded that CBT has the strongest evidence, but that the certainty of the evidence is low to moderate (Nagata et al., 2026). In a meta-analysis of 21 controlled treatment studies (1,360 people), treatment reduced gaming disorder symptoms and gaming time, along with depression and anxiety, and the reductions in symptoms and gaming time held at 90 days, but results varied widely between studies and follow-ups were short (Harpas et al., 2025). A meta-analysis of 18 randomised controlled trials (1,950 people) also found that treatments without medicine reduced severity, with psychological therapy such as CBT showing the largest effect, but publication bias was confirmed and most results were short term (Ock et al., 2025). Another meta-analysis of 38 studies (9,524 people) concluded that there may be an effect, but that small-study effects and possible publication bias make it hard to be confident (Danielsen et al., 2024). So it is more accurate to say symptoms are reduced than that people are cured.

CBT for gaming disorder usually includes training in managing emotions, education about gaming and addiction, and reworking thoughts about gaming, and every individual programme included building up activities other than gaming and relapse prevention (Radunz et al., 2026). In a trial that randomised 143 men in Germany and Austria who sought treatment for internet and computer game addiction, 69.4% (50 of 72) of those who received 15 weeks of group therapy with individual sessions reached remission as the trial defined it, compared with 23.9% (17 of 71) of those who waited over the same period (Wölfling et al., 2019). That some of those waiting also improved shows that problems sometimes ease on their own. Most specialist services in Japan (94%) aimed at reducing gaming rather than stopping completely, and 83% gave priority to building up and enriching activities other than gaming (Kitayuguchi et al., 2025).

Treatment involving the family is promising, but the evidence is small. In a randomised trial of 42 adolescents aged 12 to 19 and their parents, both family therapies reduced the number of adolescents meeting the criteria for gaming disorder over a year, but did not reduce gaming time itself, and the difference between the two therapies at one year was not statistically clear. At the start, parents saw the problem as serious while the adolescents saw it as minor (Nielsen et al., 2021). An 8-week course for parents alone helped adolescents at risk, going by the parents’ own ratings, but not those whose gaming was already pathological (Brandhorst et al., 2023).

Research on what parents can do is mostly about associations. Parental warmth was weakly linked with less problematic internet use in adolescents, while media rules and restrictions showed no clear link, and in older adolescents they even went together with more problems (Lukavská et al., 2022). For gaming too, no type of parental mediation was consistently linked with fewer problems; family cohesion went with fewer problems and family conflict with more (Nielsen et al., 2019). Japan’s Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center warns that casually taking devices away or parents setting rules on their own can reduce communication and lead to violence, and advises setting realistic small goals together with the child, having parents keep the rules too, and getting support for the family itself (Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, n.d.b). The American Academy of Pediatrics advises having a family media plan, keeping gaming in shared spaces, playing games together and setting a good example (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2020).

Legal limits on gaming time have shown little effect. Korea’s shutdown system, which blocked online games for under-16s from midnight to 6 a.m., began in 2011 and was abolished on 1 January 2022 (Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, 2021). A study comparing the years before and after with the Korea Youth Risk Behavior Survey found that daily internet use among the targeted adolescents aged 15 or under fell only about 3 minutes more than in the comparison group aged 16 and over in 2012-2013, with no significant difference afterwards, and internet addiction and sleep time did not change (Choi et al., 2018). Another analysis also found that the system did not reduce weekday or late-night gaming time, and suggested that players may have moved from PC to mobile games (Son, 2021). After China limited under-18s to 1.5 hours of gaming a day in 2019, there was no evidence that heavy play declined (Zendle et al., 2023). Korea now has a game time selection system in which young people or their guardians can ask game companies to limit playing time, but it does not apply to mobile games (Game Culture Foundation, n.d.a).

No medicine is approved for gaming disorder (Akbari et al., 2026; Kitayuguchi et al., 2025). The 12 medicine studies (724 people) gathered in a 2023 review were all done in Korea, almost all with men (98.6%), and only 4 had a low risk of bias (Sá et al., 2023). When depression or ADHD is also present, treating it could help (Lampropoulou et al., 2022), and the effect of medicines then tends to be modest and to come from improvement in symptoms such as impulsivity, inattention or depression rather than from acting on gaming itself (Nagata et al., 2026). Do not take someone else’s pills; talk to a doctor. School prevention programmes have had mixed results (Throuvala et al., 2019), and treatment camps (Sakuma et al., 2017; Suzuki et al., 2026), exercise (Yu et al., 2026) and mindfulness programmes (Li et al., 2026) rest mostly on small studies or studies of internet use problems in general, so the evidence that they work as a treatment on their own is weak.

Talk to a professional if gaming has led to missing school or turning night into day, if stopping the game brings intense anger or violent reactions, or if low mood keeps hanging on. In a survey answered by 159 child and adolescent psychiatrists in Japan, the most common reason children later diagnosed with gaming disorder first came to the clinic was school refusal, followed by a disrupted sleep-wake rhythm (Tateno et al., 2022). The American Academy of Pediatrics also advises calling your paediatrician if your child keeps resisting efforts to cut back (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2020). Recovery often comes slowly, with ups and downs (Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, n.d.a). In one Japanese clinic’s records, 37 of the 41 children who stayed in treatment for a year improved or improved slightly, but 60.7% attended 5 times or fewer, and the records had no comparison group (Masuda et al., 2022).

In Korea, the National Information Society Agency’s Smart Rest Center offers free counselling on internet and smartphone overdependence by phone on 1599-0075 (weekdays 9 a.m. to 10 p.m., Saturdays 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.), and home visits for families in serious difficulty (NIA, n.d.). Young people aged 9 to 24 and their parents can get counselling through Youth Counselling 1388 (Korea Youth Counseling & Welfare Institute, n.d.). The Ministry of Gender Equality and Family links young people found at risk of overdependence in its media-habits check (for pupils in grades 4, 7 and 10 and parents of first graders) to counselling, pays for a full psychological assessment and treatment costs when another condition is present, and runs residential healing camps for middle and high school students (Ministry of Gender Equality and Family, n.d.). Students can also get counselling at their school’s Wee class and their local Wee center (Wee Project, n.d.).

Korea’s game over-immersion healing centres are run jointly by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Game Culture Foundation and game companies, with treatment and running costs paid from game companies’ donations (Ministry of Gender Equality and Family & Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, 2021). There are now 8 centres nationwide where, by appointment, you can see a specialist doctor and have psychological assessment and counselling, and people on low incomes can get up to 50% of costs covered (Game Culture Foundation, n.d.b). Adults can contact their local mental health welfare centre (NCMH, n.d.). If it is your first time seeing a psychiatrist, see your first psychiatry visit.

In Japan, the first stop for people affected or their families is the mental health and welfare centre in each prefecture and designated city (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, n.d.). The Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center has run a specialist clinic for internet and gaming problems since 2011 (Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, n.d.a); it works by appointment only, and families can consult on their own, though this is paid privately (Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, n.d.c). It also publishes a nationwide list of treatment facilities (Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, 2025).

In France, the Consultations jeunes consommateurs (CJC) and addiction treatment and prevention centres (CSAPA) also help with gaming problems, and you can call Drogues Info Service on 0 800 23 13 13 (8 a.m. to 2 a.m., anonymous and free) (Fil Santé Jeunes, 2024). Young people aged 12 to 25 can also talk to Fil Santé Jeunes (0 800 235 236, free) (Psycom, 2026). In England, the NHS National Centre for Gaming Disorders treats people aged 13 and over, accepts self-referrals and runs workshops for families, but it is not a crisis service (CNWL, n.d.).

If being stopped from gaming, or deepening low mood, leaves you thinking of hurting yourself, do not wait. In a Korean study that followed 1,874 children aged 9 to 14 for 2 years, boys who started out at high risk of gaming disorder had about three times the risk of later suicidal thoughts, plans or attempts. No such link was seen in girls, and this is a link with a high-risk group defined by a screening questionnaire, not proof that gaming is the cause (Jeong et al., 2026). Please reach out to a crisis line right away: call or text 988 in the US and Canada, call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland, or find a line at findahelpline.com elsewhere. If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services. There is also a guide on self-harm.

Q. How many hours a day of gaming counts as addiction? A. There is no set number. WHO does not diagnose on long hours alone (WHO, 2024). In a representative study of 10- to 15-year-olds, less than 1 hour a day went with slightly better adjustment and more than 3 hours with slightly worse, but the differences were tiny, explaining less than 1.6% of the variance (Przybylski, 2014). The limit of 60 minutes a day (90 on school holidays) in Japan’s Kagawa Prefecture ordinance asks parents to make an effort to have children keep household rules; it is not a diagnostic criterion and carries no penalty (Kagawa Prefecture, 2020). Risk does tend to rise with longer play, though, so check together whether gaming is pushing out sleep, study or relationships (Zhuang et al., 2023).

Q. Do violent games make people violent? A. The link with aggression is small, and evidence that it leads to real violence or crime is lacking. Re-analysing meta-analyses that reached different conclusions points to violent games increasing aggressive behaviour, but with effects that are almost always very small (Mathur & VanderWeele, 2019). In 24 follow-up studies (more than 17,000 people), the link with later physical aggression was small but statistically clear (Prescott et al., 2018), while another analysis of follow-up studies found that the better designed the study, the closer the effect was to zero (Drummond et al., 2020). “Aggression” in this research includes measures such as blasting a partner with noise in the lab or answers to questionnaires, and the American Psychological Association has stated that blaming violence such as mass shootings on video games is not scientifically sound (American Psychological Association, 2020).

Q. Can a gaming addiction test score diagnose me? A. No. There are 32 screening tools in research alone, none clearly better than the rest (King et al., 2020), and in one Korean clinical study, diagnoses were made by professionals interviewing the young person and their carers (Jo et al., 2019). mind.io has no gaming test either. The depression check-in (PHQ-9) is not a gaming test, but it looks at your mood over the past 2 weeks.

Q. Are games always harmful? A. No. WHO sees gaming disorder as affecting only a small proportion of people who game (WHO, 2020), and a study of 6 weeks of actual play data from 38,935 adult players, supplied by seven game publishers, found that the average effect of playing time on well-being was probably very small, with why people play seeming to matter more (Vuorre et al., 2022). Training studies with action games found small gains in attention and spatial thinking, but publication bias may have inflated them (Bediou et al., 2018).

Q. Will taking the console away solve it? A. It is not that simple. The Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center explains that casually taking devices away or setting rules one-sidedly can reduce communication and lead to violence, and that when a young person has already withdrawn at home and is absorbed in games, forcing them to stop with rules rarely works (Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, n.d.b). If withdrawal is part of the picture, see Hikikomori (prolonged social withdrawal).

Q. After being told off about gaming, I feel like I want to die. A. Please do not carry this alone. Reach out to a crisis line right away: call or text 988 in the US and Canada, call Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland, or find a line at findahelpline.com elsewhere. If you are in immediate danger, contact your local emergency services.

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