Abstract
Internet gaming is a popular pastime, which has surged in popularity in light of COVID-19. While positive outcomes are common, some gamers experience problems associated with their gaming. For this reason, understanding how factors can influence healthy versus unhealthy internet gaming outcomes is crucial. This study developed gamer typologies based on boredom proneness, escapism, and coping style. Typologies were compared on problematic gaming outcomes, gaming behaviours, engagement, and health and wellbeing–related variables. Cluster analysis of a diverse international sample (N = 913) identified three distinct profiles: immersed, balanced, and detached gamers. Detached gamers reported the highest boredom proneness, escapism, and disengaged coping. They also had worse health and wellbeing–related outcomes than other clusters, despite engaging in similar gaming behaviours to immersed gamers. These novel findings emphasise the importance of an engaged coping style and highlight the risk of using solely addiction-based measures to identify problematic internet gaming, which may overlook potentially adaptive behaviours.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Article number | 2368683 |
| Pages (from-to) | 1-15 |
| Number of pages | 15 |
| Journal | Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies |
| Volume | 2025 |
| Issue number | 1 |
| Early online date | 9 Apr 2025 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2025 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Copyright the Author(s) 2025. Version archived for private and non-commercial use with the permission of the author/s and according to publisher conditions. For further rights please contact the publisher.Keywords
- boredom proneness
- coping
- escapism
- internet gaming disorder
- problematic gaming outcomes
- video games