Abstract

Aouj Maqbool, Dr Wizra Saeed

There has been little research done on the topic of online gaming addiction. The purpose of this paper was to explore the effects that excessive online gaming has on individuals, and to prove if excessive online gaming is a type of Behavioral addiction. For that the researcher took a sample of 10 participants by using the convenience sampling method. All the participants were adult and adolescent males who played online games for number of hours. Data was collected through interviews with the participants which were done via WhatsApp video calls. Participants were asked several questions, the researcher designed 9 specific questions all together covering the six themes of addiction; i.e.; salience, mood modification, tolerance, harm, withdrawal and relapse. Detailed notes were taken by the researcher during the interviews. Results were then compiled using the method of thematic coding. As the themes were already picked out the next step was to code each participantâ??s responses under their respective themes. The results clearly imply that excessive online gaming has very similar effects like any other addiction and is a behavioral addiction itself. The study has implications for classifying gaming addiction as a disorder in the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders and to focus on behavioral therapy of the people suffering on it