Self-control and online game addiction in early adult gamers

Abstract

Early adulthood is a productive period in development stage which involves more complex experiences and responsibilities. Contrary to what early adulthood should do, it was found that there were individuals who spent almost all their time playing online games at internet cafes. They always visit cyber cafes and usually play online games for at least 10 hours every day, which usually leads to various problem. This study aimed to see the correlation of self-control and online game addiction in early adult gamers. A total of 33 online gamers in early adulthood stage participated in this study and were asked to complete self-report measures using questionnaires. Questionnaires included demographic information, Brief Self-control Scale constructed by Tangney, et al. and Game Addiction Scale constructed by Lemmens, et al. Rank Spearman correlation was used to analyze the data and the result indicated that there are two aspects of self-control that have significant correlation with online game addiction (Deliberate/Non-impulsive and Self-discipline) and the other three aspects of self-control have insignificant correlation with online game addiction (Healthy Habit, Work Ethic, and Reliability). The overall result shows that self-control is significantly negative correlated with online game addiction. This means the lower the self-control, the more severe the probability of suffering online game addiction in early adult gamers.