Escaping the Self: Mediation Role of Escapism Between Psychosocial Problems and Internet Gaming Disorder Among Young Adults

Background and Purpose It has long been argued whether Internet Addiction really exists since 1990s. Research has reported that approximately more than 10% of adolescents across the world could be addicted to the Internet. Problematic video gaming has been the most noticeable subcategory in Internet related issues. DSM5 christened it Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and nine criteria such as withdrawal, tolerance, and escape adverse mood were suggested for unified measurement. Research has argued that although escapism has good sensitivity, it is suspicious to include escapism in the criteria for low specificity. Escape theory explains that people who suffer from anxiety and stress try to escape from the difficulties by the process of deconstruction and such behavior could end up alcoholism, drug abuse, or bulimia. This study aims to 1) test the escape theory with IGD, and 2) test sensitivity and specificity of escapism for IGD among young adults.

Methods Using a sample of 3,000 young adults age of 19 to 35 (male=40.5%), the cross-sectional data were studied from the Comprehensive Game Behavior Survey (2015), conducted by Korea Creative Content Agency. Anxiety, depression, stress, escapism, irrational belief, and excessive gaming were assessed with standardized scales. Gaming behaviors were assessed with the Comprehensive Scale for Game behavior (CSG). The CSG is composed with Adaptive Game Use Scale (AGUS) and Maladaptive Game Use Scale (MGUS). Two hypothesis models were created to answer the two research questions on the basis of the escape theory. Structural Equation Modeling was employed to examine the mediating and predicting effects of escapism.

Results Model fits of the measurement model with all the eight latent variables, the first escape theory model, and second hypothesis model were satisfactory (cutoff value close to .95 for CFI, TLI, .06 for RMSEA, and .08 for SRMR). In the first model, depression (β=.236, p<.001) and stress (β=.376, p<.001) are positively associated with escapism while anxiety (β=-.127, p<.05) was associated with escapism. Escapism was positively associated with irrational thoughts (β=.538, p<.001) and MGUS (β=.060, p<.05). Irrational thought was associated with maladaptive game use (β=.604, p<.001). In the second model with CSG, escapism was not significantly associated with MGUS, but rather, it was associated with AGUS (β=.101, p<.001). Irrational belief was associated with both MGUS (β=.630, p<.001) and AGUS (β=.656, p<.001).

Conclusions and Implications The results showed that the escape theory explains the causal process of IGD well. However, the direct effect of escapism to maladaptive game use was relatively weak unlike previous literature has suggested. Thus, it is questionable whether or not the escapism could be included in the nine criteria of the IGD. Also, it is shown that escapism is more related with adaptive game use while it was not with maladaptive game use, meaning that playing video games to escape adverse moods in reality can help people alleviate it. It would be better to leave escapism as one of motivations of gaming. The results could contribute to understand IGD and to develop unified measurement for IGD as DSM5 requested.