Journal of Behavioral Addictions

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Internet addiction has been linked to ADHD-related symptoms. However, the direction of the relationship and its potential for reciprocal relations is not well understood. This study examined the potential reciprocal relations between the three components of ADHD and Internet addiction, as well as the moderating effects of gender on these relations. METHODS: Using a longitudinal design, we collected data of 865 Chinese adolescents across three waves (Mage = 13...

BACKGROUND: The advancement of communication technology and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic have led to an increased reliance on online education. However, the effects of the long-term use of smart devices for online learning on students' social anxiety and problematic smartphone use (PSU) and the role of fear of missing out (FoMO) in this process have yet to be fully explored. METHODS: This study analysed longitudinal data from 2,356 high school students (female = 1,137 (48...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Smartphone, computer and land-based betting platforms each have distinctive features. This study examined 1) preferred features of sports betting platforms amongst young adults and 2) whether feature preferences vary with gambling severity. METHODS: The study surveyed 616 Australians aged 18-29 years who bet at-least monthly on sports, esports and/or daily fantasy sports. Participants provided a simple rating of the importance of 24 features of betting platforms and then completed a discrete choice experiment to indicate their preferences amongst different groups of features...

Behavior frequency measures in behavioral addictions research fail to account for how engagement in the activity relates to each respondent's personal circumstances. We propose a "Red Box, Green Box" method, an alternative to conventional self-report behavior questions. Participants report two distinct time-based values: (1) Green box: time spent engaged in the activity during 'free' time, and (2) Red box: engagement in the activity at times when the respondent should be doing something else (e.g., studying, working, sleeping, exercising, etc...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and depression have negative consequences on individuals' mental health, but their relationships are complex. This three-wave longitudinal study aimed to detect the metacognitive mechanisms underlying the association between IGD tendency and depression based on the self-regulatory executive function model. METHODS: A total of 1,243 Chinese undergraduate student gamers (57% female, M = 19.77, SD = 1.29) were recruited at the baseline survey (Wave 1 [W1]), with 622 and 574 of them taking part in the two follow-up surveys (Wave 2 [W2] at 6 and Wave 3 [W3] at 12 months later), respectively...

BACKGROUND: Although internet gaming disorder (IGD) has been listed in section III of the DSM-5 for approximately 10 years, the study of treatments for IGD remains in early stages. Nonetheless, a summary of findings to date and discussion of future research needs are warranted. METHODS: The current study reviewed scientific treatment studies with control groups and randomized controlled trials. We summarized the strengths and weaknesses of different treatment strategies and identified gaps in the research literature that may inform the direction of future research efforts...

BACKGROUND: Whilst some research has explored the impact of COVID-19 on gambling behaviour, little is yet known about online search behaviours for gambling during this period. The current study explored gambling-related online searches before, during and after the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK. We also assessed whether search trends were related to Gambling Commission behavioural data over the same period. METHODS: Google Trends™ search data, covering thirty months from January 2020 to June 2022, for five gambling activities and five gambling operators were downloaded...

BACKGROUND: Data implicate overlaps in neurobiological pathways involved in appetite regulation and addictive disorders. Despite different neuroendocrine measures having been associated with both gambling disorder (GD) and food addiction (FA), how appetite-regulating hormones may relate to the co-occurrence of both entities remain incompletely understood. AIMS: To compare plasma concentrations of ghrelin, leptin, adiponectin, and liver-expressed antimicrobial peptide 2 (LEAP-2) between patients with GD, with and without FA, and to explore the association between circulating hormonal concentrations and neuropsychological and clinical features in individuals with GD and FA...

Social chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) may be particularly appealing to individuals with social deficits or conditions that affect their social functioning. In this letter, we discuss some of the noteworthy characteristics of social chatbots and how they may influence adaptive and maladaptive behaviors, including the potential for 'dependency' on chatbots. We call for more independent studies to evaluate the potential developmental and therapeutic effects of this increasingly popular technology...

BACKGROUNDS AND AIMS: Family dysfunction is a significant risk factor for adolescent problematic gaming, yet few studies have investigated the bidirectional relations between changes in family dysfunction and adolescent problematic gaming and potential mediating mechanisms. This study thus examined the bidirectional relations between family dysfunction and adolescent problematic gaming and the mediating role of self-concept clarity within this relation. METHODS: Participants included 4,731 Chinese early adolescents (44...

Open science refers to a set of practices that aim to make scientific research more transparent, accessible, and reproducible, including pre-registration of study protocols, sharing of data and materials, the use of transparent research methods, and open access publishing. In this commentary, we describe and evaluate the current state of open science practices in behavioral addiction research. We highlight the specific value of open science practices for the field; discuss recent field-specific meta-scientific reviews that show the adoption of such practices remains in its infancy; address the challenges to engaging with open science; and make recommendations for how researchers, journals, and scientific institutions can work to overcome these challenges and promote high-quality, transparently reported behavioral addiction research...

BACKGROUND & AIMS: The gamblification of UK football has resulted in a proliferation of in-game marketing associated with gambling and gambling-like products such as cryptocurrencies and financial trading apps. The English Premier League (EPL) has in response banned gambling logos on shirt-fronts from 2026 onward. This ban does not affect other types of marketing for gambling (e.g., sleeves and pitch-side hoardings), nor gambling-like products. This study therefore aimed to assess the ban's implied overall reduction of different types of marketing exposure...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: The intertemporal and risk decision-making impairments are vital cognitive mechanisms in internet use disorder (IUD). However, the underlying neural mechanisms for these two decision-making dysfunctions in individuals with IUD remain unclear. METHODS: This study employed Functional Near-Infrared Spectroscopy (fNIRS) to record changes in blood oxygen concentration in the prefrontal cortex of individuals with IUD during intertemporal and risk decision-making tasks...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Time perception is a cognitive process involving both the ability to estimate the duration of an event (time estimation, TE) and the subjective perception of its passage (time passage, TP). Studies show that alteration in TE/TP is associated with substance use disorders. However, little is known about the impact of these alterations in potentially problematic online behaviors. We explore TE and TP while participants were exposed to cues related to videogames, pornography, and TV series, and the relationship of TE and TP with scores from instruments that measure problematic gaming (PG), problematic pornography use (PPU), and problematic binge-watching (BW)...

Gaming disorder (GD) screening often involves self-report survey measures to detect the presence of symptoms. Studies have shown that gamers' responses vary greatly across survey items. Some symptoms, such as preoccupation and tolerance, are frequently reported by highly engaged but non-problematic gamers, and therefore these symptoms are thought to lack specificity and are suggested to be less important in classification decisions. We argue that the influence of response categories (e.g., dichotomous responses, such as 'yes' or 'no'; or frequency categories, such as 'rarely' and 'often') on item responses has been relatively underexplored despite potentially contributing significantly to the psychometric performance of items and scales...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Simulated gambling products, like loot boxes and social casino games, contain gambling elements, but are not classified as gambling. They are available to minors, raising concerns about a "gateway effect" into gambling. This study examined the time course of young people's engagement in simulated and monetary gambling, and associations between simulated gambling and gambling problems and harm. A necessary, although not sufficient, condition for simulated games leading to real money gambling is that simulated play must come first...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Smartphones extend the situational characteristics of sports betting beyond those available with land-based and computer platforms. This study examined 1) the role of situational features and betting platforms in harmful betting behaviours and short-term betting harm, and 2) whether people with more gambling problems have preferred situational features, engage more in harmful betting behaviours, and experience more severe short-term betting harm. METHODS: An ecological momentary assessment analysed 1,378 betting sessions on sports, esports or daily fantasy sports, reported by 267 respondents (18-29 years; 50...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Resting-state brain activity may be associated with the ability to perform tasks; however, a multimodal approach involving resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and event-related potentials (ERPs) has not been widely used to investigate addictive disorders. METHODS: We explored resting-state fMRI and auditory oddball ERP values from 26 with internet gaming disorder (IGD) patients and 27 age- and intelligence quotient-matched healthy controls (HCs)...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: In the digital age, Internet addiction (IA) was deemed an epidemic and few treatments had been effectively developed for it. Here, we proposed a solution-focused group counseling (SFGC) as a potentially solution to reduce Internet addiction among college students. The present study examined the short- and long-term effect of a five-week solution-focused group counseling intervention on Internet addiction. METHODS: Thirty-two participants were recruited and randomly assigned to either the experimental or control group, and twenty-six participants completed the whole intervention...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS: Gaming disorder [GD] risk has been associated with the way gamers bond with their visual representation (i.e., avatar) in the game-world. More specifically, a gamer's relationship with their avatar has been shown to provide reliable mental health information about the user in their offline life, such as their current and prospective GD risk, if appropriately decoded. METHODS: To contribute to the paucity of knowledge in this area, 565 gamers (Mage = 29...