Social phobia and motivations of gaming as predictors of internet gaming disorder

• Main Authors: Kon, Jacqueline Jia Min, Low, Su Rou
• Format: Final Year Project / Dissertation / Thesis
• Published: 2019
• Subjects: RC Internal medicine
• Online Access: http://eprints.utar.edu.my/3545/1/fyp_PY_2019_KJJM.pdf; http://eprints.utar.edu.my/3545/

Internet gaming as one of the most popular leisure activities worldwide, however it brings destructive impacts to one’s mental health. There are widely documented detrimental impacts, including sleep disturbances, emotional problems, cognitive deficits, significant impairment of academic and daily functioning were found on people with IGD. The highly addictive genre - Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) has exponentially become more popular in local context. The present study aims to examine how motivations of gaming (e.g., motivation of achievement, motivation of social, and motivation of immersion) together with social phobia were related to IGD symptoms among Malaysian MOBA gamers. A cross-sectional descriptive study was conducted with employment of purposive sampling method due to geographical dispersion of gamers and difficulty in tracking the exact location of MOBA gamers. A sample of 1,036 Malaysian MOBA non-professional gamers age ranging from 18 to 29 years (mean= 21.96 years), with at least 12 months of gaming experiences was collected. Analysis showed that all of the predictors significantly predicted IGD symptoms. Motivation of achievement, motivation of immersion and social phobia were positively predicted IGD symptoms, while the motivation of immersion was found to be the strongest predictor. Motivation of social reported negatively predicted IGD symptoms. Further study focuses on the use of gaming as a tool to socialize in relation to IGD symptoms are recommended.