A study from UC Santa Barbara’s Media Neuroscience Lab has found that video game addiction in teenagers is more likely to be linked to preexisting mental health issues rather than the games themselves. The research, conducted by Kylie Falcione and René Weber, was published in JAMA Network Open.
The team analyzed data from the NIH-funded Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study, following 4,289 U.S. adolescents who played video games between 2018 and 2022. They tracked participants over three age groups: 11–12, 12–13, and 13–14 years old. Researchers also considered factors such as depression, anxiety, previous gaming disorders, sex, impulsivity, bullying, and adverse life events.
“We’ve known for some time that gaming disorder exists, but we’ve also known that not every gamer develops the disorder,” said Falcione. “So the question that a lot of researchers have been asking about is what drives people to develop a gaming disorder. Is it the addictive nature of all these rewards and punishments of the video games themselves? Or is it that some people have preexisting conditions or personal core characteristics that are leading them to develop a gaming disorder?” According to their findings, preexisting conditions play a larger role.
Falcione explained further: “The results we found were clear and consistent. The kids who were already having depressive symptoms and social issues were more likely to get stuck in a cycle of problematic gaming.”
She added: “What the study showed was that the underlying issue started beforehand and that the addictive gaming behaviors were, in a way, a symptom or a manifestation of those preexisting psychopathologies. For these kids, gaming had become an unhealthy coping mechanism.”
Weber noted previous research suggesting psychopathology and gaming disorder can reinforce each other over time but cautioned about drawing direct cause-and-effect conclusions from this data alone. “Our study cannot fully rule out such a bidirectional relationship,” he said. “In this ‘downward spiral’ association, the question of cause and effect can become blurry.”
The researchers believe their work could guide new treatment approaches for problematic gaming among teens by focusing on underlying mental health concerns first.
“Based on our research, the best step towards treatment would be to start at the psychopathology level — identify the underlying issues,” Falcione said. “That’s a big takeaway.”
She also addressed common misconceptions among parents: “Many parents think that simply taking away video games will solve the problem,” she said. “But without addressing what’s really going on, parents will not only be contending with their child’s withdrawal symptoms; their child may relapse into more addictive gaming behaviors or find another outlet.”
Globally, around 3% of gamers are affected by gaming disorder—a figure influenced by how it is defined as well as factors like game type and region.
