Situating problematic gaming and psychotic-like experiences in the adolescent landscape of affordances: A cohort study

Abstract

Background and aims: Problematic gaming has been linked to increased levels of psychotic-like experiences (PLEs) in youth, but the role of environmental factors remains unclear. We aimed to examine the association of problematic gaming with PLEs and, using affordance theory, to evaluate whether environmental factors could help enhance the identification of this risk. Methods: Participants were 6,467 youth (39.2% female) who reported playing digital games, from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study in the U.S. Measures included problematic gaming, peer environment (number of close friends), school environment (teachers, activities, etc.), family environment (parental monitoring), and PLEs. We examined whether the peer, school, and family environments at age 12 were associated with problematic gaming and moderated its association with PLEs at age 13. Results: Higher levels of problematic gaming at age 12 were associated with higher levels of PLEs at age 13, independently of sociodemographic variables and previous PLEs. The strength of the association between problematic gaming and PLEs did not significantly vary as a function of the peer, school, or family environment variables (i.e., there was no significant interaction effect). However, more protective school and family environments at age 12 were associated with lower levels of problematic gaming at age 13, independently of previous levels of problematic gaming. Discussion and conclusions: Positive school and family environments may be protective against problematic gaming in adolescence but do not appear to attenuate the putative effect of problematic gaming on PLEs. The results provide partial support to an affordance-based conceptualization of problematic gaming.