Pathological Online Game Use And Its Effects On Adolescents' Subjective Well-being And Sleen Quality:A Moderated-Mediation Model

The Internet has made world a globalized village but along with the benefits,there are occurring some negative consequences due to its over-use.Playing online video games has become the most preferred pastime activity for adolescents especially in Asian countries.Reporting of addictive use of the Internet and Internet gaming started globally soon after easy accessibility of the Internet.APA added Internet gaming disorder to the appendix of DSM-V under conditions for further study.This situation led to an outburst of research on addictive use of the Internet and video gaming.There is no conceptual clarity on its definition or diagnostic criterion.Similarly,no standard theoretical framework is available to understand this condition.The current study was conducted to gauge the prevalence of addictive pattern of pathological online game use in the prefecture level city of Yichang,to test the effects of pathological online game use on subjective well-being and sleep quality of adolescents,to gauge the mediatory role of sleep quality in the relationship between pathological online game use and subjective well-being,and to examine the moderating role of self-control on sleep quality(mediating role between pathological online game use and subjective well-being)in China.Another major purpose was to test a combination of theoretical frameworks to understand the effects of pathological online game use on adolescents.The data were collected from a large sample of 2767 junior secondary and senior secondary school students(grade 7,8,9,11,12).The conceptual framework of the study was based on a combination of theoretical frameworks usually used in the recent past research to understand the Internet and pathological online game use and their effects.The results showed that 4.1%of adolescents were meeting the criterion of being addicted to pathological online game use.Moreover,pathological online game use was affecting sleep quality and subjective well-being of participants negatively.Sleep quality was mediating the predictive effect of pathological online game use on subjective well-being.Moreover,self-control was moderating the mediating effect of sleep quality on subjective well-being in pathological online game use.