Epidemiology: video game addiction
A video game addiction study, with a randomly selected sample of 1,178 youth ages 8 to 18, showed that about 8% of video-game players exhibited pathological patterns of play (United States of America)27. A manuscript revealed that of a total of 816 individuals the prevalence of video game addiction was estimated to be 0.6 percent, with problematic use of video games reported by 4.1 percent of the sample (Norway)28. Gender (male) and age group (young) were strong predictors for problematic use of video games. Other research indicates that a range of 3% of users of video games, worldwide, is presenting addiction, predominantly in male subjects29. The same limitations of Internet addiction are present here.