Digital Gaming and Psychological Well-being among Adolescent College Going Students in Puducherry, India

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescents are vulnerable to addictions such as tobacco, alcohol, pornography, internet use etc. Due to high exposure to internet and gadgets, the involvement of adolescents in digital gaming has increased significantly in recent years. Excessive digital gaming may affect the mental health status. Aim: To measure the prevalence of digital gaming and to assess the relationship between digital gaming and psychological well-being among college going adolescents. Materials and Methods: A college based cross-sectional study was conducted among 415 adolescents (≤19 years of age) studying in arts, engineering and medical colleges located in Puducherry. The study participants were recruited using stratified multistage sampling technique. After obtaining written informed consent, study participants were interviewed using a structured questionnaire consisting of variables such as socio-demography, usage and pattern of digital gaming. Gaming Addiction Scale was used to assess the level of addiction to digital gaming. Psychological well-being score was assessed using 42 items Ryff’s scale with six domains such as autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others, purpose in life and self-acceptance. Data was analysed in IBM SPSS Statistics for windows, Version 21.0 (IBM Corp, Armonk, New York). Chi-square test and one-way ANOVA tests were used to measure the p-value, p<0.05 was considered as statistically significant. Results: Out of 415 study participants, 83.1% were current or past players of digital games. Females (93%) ever played more than males (74%) (p<0.001). The proportion of current/past gamers was lowest in the participants aged 17 years (49.1%) (p<0.001). All engineering and arts students (100%) played the digital games either currently or in past, however it was only 48.9% among medical students (p<0.001). Majority (53.6%) played in both online and offline mode. About three-fourth (76.2%) of the study participants were playing digital games at their homes. The proportion of daily playing digital gamers was higher in females (28.6%) than males (23.4%) but statistically not significant (p=0.215). A 29% of the study participants felt bad when they were unable to play games. The prevalence of addictive and problematic users among those who were playing digital games was 4.3% and 33.6%, respectively. The mean score of self-acceptance dimension of psychological well-being was lowest among current users than past and never users with statistical significance (p=0.046). However, the dimension of personal growth was higher among current and never users than past users (p<0.001). Conclusion: Most of the college going adolescents had ever played digital games. There was no significant relationship between psychological well-being and digital gaming except for personal growth and self-acceptance dimensions.