Problematiskt datorspelande: en studie om spelandets funktion och inverkan på individen

Sammanfattning: The aim of this study was to provide a description of the Swedish massively multiplayer online (MMO) community, and to investigate factors pertinent to problematic gaming. The analysis was based on 429 answers from a multiple-choice web-based survey with questions spread across the following scales: achievement, social interaction, self-reactive outcome expectations, flow, deficient self-regulation and problematic gaming. All scales showed good reliability. Moderate to strong correlations were found between problematic gaming and gaming time, achievement, self-reactive outcome expectations, flow and deficient self-regulation. T-tests showed significant between-group differences regarding these factors among high- and low scorers on the problematic gaming scale. A multiple regression analysis examined the usefulness of a problematic gaming prediction model including gaming time, social interaction, self-reactive outcome expectations and flow. The designed model explained 40 percent of the variance in the outcome variable. Gaming time, as expected, was a relatively strong predictor. However, other factors were even more important to explicate problematic gaming. In particular, results indicated that gaming in the purpose of counteracting anxiety, stress or depressive moods was a risk factor.