Video gaming is highly popular in the United States, with 190.6 million people playing and 61% of the population engaging weekly (Entertainment Software Association [ESA], 2024). Although gaming can provide social and cognitive benefits, excessive use has been associated with Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), currently listed in Section III of the DSM-5 as a condition requiring further study (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). IGD has been linked to impaired academic performance, social withdrawal, and psychological distress. Guided by the Compensatory Internet Use Theory (Kardefelt-Winther, 2014), this preliminary study aimed to explore psychological, sociodemographic, and behavioral factors associated with IGD in Puerto Rican adolescents. Using a cross-sectional design, data were collected via Google Forms with non-probabilistic snowball and availability sampling. The sample included 115 adolescents (M = 15.02 years, SD = 1.30) who completed standardized measures of IGD, stress, anxiety, depression, coping, emotion regulation, loneliness, and gaming time. Pearson correlations revealed significant associations between IGD and stress (r = .63), anxiety (r = .53), depression (r = .57), coping (r = .47), and emotion regulation (r = .41), all p < .001, as well as gaming hours per week (r = .43, p = .012). The regression model explained 51% of the variance in IGD (R² = .51), with sex (B = –5.80, p < .001), stress (B = 0.27, p = .004), and depression (B = 0.22, p = .033) as significant predictors. The findings suggest that IGD may be closely related to psychological distress, consistent with the Compensatory Internet

Authors:
Yamil Omar Ortiz Ortiz, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico
Ismael Castillo, University of Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico

About the Presenter(s)
Dr. Yamil O. Ortiz Ortiz, Auxiliary Researcher at the Social Research Center (UPR-RP), studies digital technologies such as video games, AI, social media, and VR.

Additional website of interest
https://pr.linkedin.com/in/yamil-ortiz-a77611a1

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