The interplay between time spent gaming and disordered gaming: A large-scale world-wide study

Background. ‘Gaming Disorder’ (GD) is now an officially recognized mental health disorder according to the World Health Organization (WHO) framework while ‘Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) remains as a tentative disorder as per the American Psychiatric Association (APA) framework. Although both GD and IGD reflect disordered gaming tendencies marked by excessive time spent gaming, little is known about the extent to which too much time spent gaming becomes particularly problematic. Moreover, emerging research has highlighted the need to further explore how both disordered gaming frameworks perform in the assessment and estimation of disordered gaming symptoms and related behaviors. Methods. The primary aim of the present study was to shed light on the complex relationship between time spent gaming and disordered gaming and to provide prevalence estimates of disordered gaming across the WHO and APA frameworks. This study adopted an online survey methodology and a cross-sectional design in a large sample of 123,262 eligible gamers from 168 countries. Results. The results obtained indicated that the prevalence rate of disordered gaming among the participants was smaller when assessed with the WHO framework (i.e., 1.96%) in comparison to the APA framework (i.e., 4.97%). Additionally, the relationship between time spent gaming and disordered gaming was not linear, and disordered gaming was associated on average with 36 hours of gaming a week within the APA framework and at least 40 hours a week within the WHO framework. Conclusions. The relationship between weekly time spent gaming and disordered gaming is multifaceted and varies according to the diagnostic framework adopted. The results highlight the need for further refinement at the diagnostic level in regard to disordered gaming.