Internet and video game use in adolescence and quality of life

A recent study has analyzed the use of the Internet and video games of 2,024 young people between the ages of 11 and 18.

Young people are enrolled in 16 educational centers in Spain.

The study was carried out by a team made up of researchers from the University of the Basque Country (UPV/EHU), the International University of La Rioja, the Public University of Navarra, the Complutense University of Madrid and the University of Deusto, in the framework of the Cyberpsychology Group.

Participants who showed problematic internet or video game use had significantly lower scores on health-related quality of life.

According to data from the Spanish National Statistics Institute (INE), in 2019, 79% of 10-year-old boys and girls owned a computer, and 22.3% a mobile; at 15 years, the percentages rose to 93.6% and 93.8%, respectively. Epidemiological studies indicate that approximately 15% of adolescents have problematic use of the Internet and/or mobile phones.

The study has for the first time linked problematic internet use and internet gaming disorder in adolescents, together, with a worse health-related quality of life, that is, with a worse state of physical, mental and social well-being. . Both problems begin to be frequent in adolescents.

The general problematic use of the Internet supposes a dysfunctional use of the handling and management of the Internet in general: It is not a disorder in itself. For there to be problematic use, there must be a preference for online interaction and compulsive use that generates conflicts, as explained by Juan Manuel Machimbarrena, from the Department of Clinical and Health Psychology and Research Methodology at the University of the Basque Country. For its part, Internet gaming disorder is a specific behavior linked to online video games: It has the characteristics of an addiction. People with this disorder get nervous when they can’t play; they may have psychological or even psychosomatic symptoms. And it can cause problems in their daily lives.

Juan Manuel Machimbarrena at the Faculty of Psychology of the University of the Basque Country. (Photo: Nagore Iraola / UPV/EHU)

We must not demonize technology, we must understand it and understand it in its context

The results of the study show that 15.5% of the participants present high levels of general problematic use of the Internet and 3.3% of adolescents who play video games have presented signs of this disorder. Machimbarrena notes that “the majority of the participants did not have any problems; Neither of the two problems at a worrying level. But those who had both general internet use and gaming disorder problems did have poorer health-related quality of life.”

The researchers want to emphasize that we cannot infer causation. It is known that people who have these two problems at the same time have a lower quality of life. Now, it could be that having a lower quality of life encourages these problems to appear; or that suffering from these problems causes the quality of life to deteriorate to the level observed. On the other hand, there are also people who use the internet and video games to regulate their mood without presenting a problem. That means that not everyone who often uses the internet or video games has a problem.”

The UPV/EHU researcher explains that everyone resorts to different strategies to improve their state of mind: “Some strategies, such as drugs or alcohol, are more harmful; however, others such as sports are healthier. The consumption of video games and social networks is not the best regulation mechanism, it is another one; that depending on its use it can be harmful or not”.

Machimbarrena advocates doing more research to find out “the way in which minors relate to technology. We have to do more research to find out what the solution is for those children who have problems with video games or problems in their quality of life. The problem is not that video games generate a great addiction, but that they are simple and attractive stimuli that help them regulate their mood. And there what you have to work on is not only being hooked on video games, but what other things that person has in their life. We must promote that video games do not become the only thing that entertains and motivates them”. Likewise, he affirms that “there is a certain oversizing of the problem of technological addictions or of the problematic uses of technology. We believe that it is important to contextualize these supposed addictions, without losing sight of the fact that we must help those who have these problems, but without demonizing technology”.

The study is titled “Problematic Internet Use and Internet Gaming Disorder: Overlap and Relationship to Health-Related Quality of Life in Adolescents.” And it has been published in the academic journal Addictions. (Source: UPV/EHU)