Long-term binge gaming and internet gaming disorder are still relatively new phenomena that aren’t fully understood yet. However, a recently released study examined the effects of binge gaming on both boys and girls, and the results demonstrated that males have a greater chance of developing the addiction-like symptoms of IGD if they play games for five hours or longer at a time.
PLOS recently shared a 2022 Hong Kong-based study that was compiled using male and female schoolchildren. For the purposes of this report, smartphone gaming and PC gaming were both counted towards the length of a binge session.
The study was comprised of 2,000 students from primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong, with a median age of 12 years old. According to the findings, 38% of boys self-reported binge gaming, while only 24% of girls did the same. The results also suggested that male players who engaged in binge gaming were more likely than females to experience IGD, depression, stress, poor sleep quality and “lower educational self-efficacy.”
Because of the small sampling group, the results of this study are far from definitive. However, they do suggest that there’s a real gender gap between males and females suffering from the negative side effects of binge gaming. The study also noted that non-binge gamer boys and non-gamer girls both had lower levels of stress, anxiety, grief, and depression than non-binge gamer girls.
The study concludes that interventions for treating IGD and binge gaming should be gender-specific in order to address the potential mental and physical health risks that come with them. More studies are likely to be conducted in the future to examine these results and build upon the report’s findings.