Binge-Watching: What Do we Know So Far? A First Systematic Review of the Evidence

in Current Addiction Reports (2020), 7(1), 44-60

Purpose of Review: Along with the expansion of on-demand viewing technology, the practice of binge-watching (i.e., watching multiple episodes of TV series back-to-back) has recently gained increasing ... [more ▼]

Purpose of Review: Along with the expansion of on-demand viewing technology, the practice of binge-watching (i.e., watching multiple episodes of TV series back-to-back) has recently gained increasing research interest, given its potential harmfulness and presumed addictive characteristics. The present article provides the first systematic review of the evidence regarding this increasingly widespread behavior. Recent Findings: The results of this systematic review (including 24 studies and 17,545 participants) show that binge-watching remains an ill-defined construct as no consensus exists on its operationalization and measurement. Although such methodological disparities across studies hinder the comparability of results, the preliminary findings gathered here mainly point to the heterogeneous nature of binge-watching which covers at least two distinct realities, i.e., high but non-harmful engagement and problematic involvement in TV series watching. Summary: In these early stages of research, there is a major need for more consistency and harmonization of constructs and their operationalizations to move forward in the understanding of binge-watching. Just as important, future research should maintain the distinction between high and problematic involvement in binge-watching to avoid overpathologizing this common behavior. [less ▲]

High involvement versus pathological involvement in video games: A crucial distinction for ensuring the validity and utility of gaming disorder

in Current Addiction Reports (2019), 6(3), 323-330

Purpose of review. The year 2018 was marked by the official recognition of Gaming Disorder (GD) as a mental condition with its inclusion in the proposed eleventh edition of the International ... [more ▼]

Purpose of review. The year 2018 was marked by the official recognition of Gaming Disorder (GD) as a mental condition with its inclusion in the proposed eleventh edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). Recently, a group of scholars has repeatedly criticized the notion of GD proposed by the World Health Organization (WHO), arguing that its inclusion in ICD-11 will pathologize highly involved but healthy gamers. It is therefore of crucial importance to clarify the characteristics of high involvement versus pathological involvement in video games, the boundaries between these constructs, and the implementation of screening and diagnostic GD tools that distinguish the two. Recent findings. Increasing evidence supports the view that intense video game playing may involve patterns of gaming that are characterized by high involvement but that are non-pathological. Furthermore, some criteria for addictive and related disorders may reflect peripheral features that are not necessarily indicative of pathology, whereas others may reflect core features that are more likely to adequately identify pathological behavior and so have diagnostic validity. Finally, it is key to assess functional impairment associated with gaming, so that a GD diagnosis has clinical utility. Summary. Available evidence supports the crucial need to distinguish between high and pathological involvement in videogames, in order to avoid over-diagnosis and pathologization of normal behavior. The definition of GD adopted in ICD-11 has clinical utility and diagnostic validity since it explicitly mentions the functional impairment caused by problem gaming and its diagnostic guidelines refer to core addiction features, reflecting pathological involvement. [less ▲]

Prevalence and Correlates of Problematic Online Gaming: a Systematic Review of the Evidence Published in Chinese

in Current Addiction Reports (2018), 5(3), 359-371

Purpose of Review With the ongoing debate about whether problematic online gaming (POG) constitutes a genuine mental disorder, it is important for all available evidence in the field to be accessible. In ... [more ▼]

Purpose of Review With the ongoing debate about whether problematic online gaming (POG) constitutes a genuine mental disorder, it is important for all available evidence in the field to be accessible. In this systematic review, we summarize the numerous results related to POG published in Chinese in order to make them more accessible to the international community. Recent Findings We identified 36 relevant studies published in Chinese (7 epidemiological, 21 related to psychological factors, and 8 related to neurocognitive exploration, involving 362,328 participants in total). According to the literature, the prevalence rates of POG in China range from 3.5 to 17%, which is higher than those reported worldwide. Overall, the data published in Chinese are consistent with the international literature. Some distinctive findings emerged, however, in particular in relation to familial, scholastic, and social factors; cognitive impairments; and functional changes in neural circuits. Summary This review is the first to render available articles on POG in Chinese for the international community, which could contribute to the current debate on the status of POG as a genuine mental health condition. Crucially, findings from the Chinese literature often resulted from studies conducted on large random or clinical samples. This is important because a repeated criticism about the recognition of POG as a genuine disorder is the fact that the evidence-based results rely heavily on convenience samples of nonclinical participants. [less ▲]