Video Game Addiction Test

Are you an online gamer? Do you game every once in a while or do you spend hours playing your favorite video games? Do you spend more time gaming than doing other things? If so, maybe it is time to get evaluated for Video Game Addiction.

What is a Video Game Addiction Test?

Having a hobby is always a fun and refreshing thing in our stressful day-to-day life, but when you go too far with a hobby, and at some point in time, it becomes an addiction, that is the real problem. Video Game Addiction or “gaming disorder” is one such behavioral addiction. Video Game Addiction Test is a psychometric tool used to measure the severity of video game addiction in an individual. This questionnaire is used by individuals who doubt their gaming interest and by health professionals in primary care settings to measure this type of addiction in adolescent and adult patients.

Gaming Disorder: The new threat to Mental well-being

Gaming disorder is a preoccupation with video games that may be harmful and affect an individual's day-to-day life activities.The World Health Organization added “gaming disorder” to the 2018 version of its medical reference book, International Classification of Diseases. According to WHO, gaming disorders are characterized by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities to the extent that gaming takes precedence over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation of gaming despite negative consequences.

Should everyone playing video games or digital games should be concerned? The answer to that question is obviously a “no.” But whoever thinks gaming takes most of their crucial times, can’t escape the urge towards gaming should think of taking up a video game addiction test to clarify whether it is a hobby or an addiction.

Video game addiction symptoms

Like any other behavioral addiction, video game addiction also has certain symptoms that help you look into you or into someone you think suffers from this addiction. The major symptoms of video game addiction are,

• Thinking about gaming all or a lot of the time
• Feeling bad or low when you can’t play video games
• Gradually needing to spend more and more time gaming to gain the same level of happiness or enjoyment.
• Not being able to quit or even play less.
• Not wanting to do other things that you used to enjoy before.
• Having problems at work, school, or home because of your gaming.
• Playing despite these problems.
• Lying to people close to you about how much time you spend playing.
• Use gaming to ease bad moods or a way to cope up with stress.

How Video Game Addiction Test works?

Video game Addiction Test is a 14-item psychometric questionnaire designed to measure the level of difficulty phased by an individual having gaming disorder. The core of this tool is framed around video game addiction symptoms.

The 14 core symptoms are measured against 5 standard responses starting from “never” to “veryoften.” Each response category is given a score on a 5-point scale, 0 for “never” to 4 for “very often.” Each of the individual scores are taken and summed up to get the overall score of the Video game Addiction Test.

Several studies conducted across various nations have proved that the Video game Addiction Test is the best tool to identify and measure video game addiction. The VAT demonstrated excellent reliability, excellent construct validity, a one-factor model fit, and a high degree of measurement invariance across gender, ethnicity.

Video Game addiction Treatment

Therapy is one of the most effective ways of treating video game addiction; it reduces the fixation people have with gaming and abate the symptoms slowly.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)is one of the most common and helpful therapies used to treat Video game addiction. It examines the thoughts that lead to video games and slowly replace them with healthier thoughts. It aims to change the way of seeing things negatively and emphasize how to include the positive sides of everything that happens around them.

Conclusion

Statistics show that more than 2 billion people play video games globally, 150 million in the United States(Source:healthygamer.gg). Several surveys indicate that Gaming Disorder affects between 1-10% of Europe and North America. So the percentage of people being affected by these kinds of addictions is increasing at a fast pace. Most of us are unaware that an entire generation faces these kinds of distractions in their path to productivity and success. Being unaware is more dangerous than the addiction itself, so take-up a test, don’t let anything affect your inner harmony.