Abstract
The aim of this paper is to study the social representation of Internet Gaming Disorder. For this reason, 286 adults, both male and female, 18-69 years old, participated in the research. The selected method is the free association technique. Underlying assumptions are: On one hand, a strong representation was not expected, given the fact that this disorder has been acknowledged only for the last ten years in the scientific field. On the other hand, addiction is expected to be the central nucleus’ main element. Results confirmed the above assumptions. Indeed, addiction seems to be the core’s main element. Furthermore, “Social isolation” and “Technological means” stood out as main peripheral elements, due to their relatively high frequency. In addition, results suggest that the representation has not yet fully emerged, confirming our first hypothesis. Finally, we must keep in mind that this new concept needs further study. Therefore, alternative proposals and methods for future research are proposed in the last section of this paper, in order to take a broad view of this subject.
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