Gentile (2009) found that 8.5% of a national sample of American youths aged 8-18 years exhibited addictive
or “pathological patterns of play” including damage to family, and social, school, or psychological
functioning. However, Gentille (2009) also highlights that there is no established causality between
addiction to video games and these behaviours. For example, he mentions that while pathological gaming
could cause these symptoms, it is also possible that poor results and attention deficit may cause an
attraction to games, or that players could be attracted to games where they experience a feeling of mastery.
It is also important to note that some gamers are labelled as “addicted” although they may not have any
addiction problem.
Addiction is often a sign of poor coping abilities to deal with daily life stress or traumatic events. As such,
addiction to gaming should not be considered in isolation because research has shown that there is
significant comorbidity between addictions, and that people are usually addicted to more than one activity
or substance (Greenberg et al., 1999). Addiction to video games may just be another symptom of deeper
and more complex issues, rather than a cause of addiction problems, that individuals need to deal with
(Wood, 2008).