SY20-4 * VIRTUAL REALITY THERAPY FOR INTERNET GAMING DISORDER

Background Excessive internet game use frequently leads to various physical, psychological, and social problems, and internet gaming disorder (IGD) has become a serious public health issue worldwide. Recently, virtual reality (VR) therapy has emerged as a promising method to increase psychological treatment motivation and accessibility. However, few studies have examined the potential of VR technology for the management of IGD, and VR content tailored to IGD characteristics remains scarce. Objective This preliminary study aimed to examine the potential of a VR-based program that was designed to help users identify their leisure time use patterns, especially those related to gaming, and to modify their gaming overuse by alternative activities provided in the VR content. Moreover, to investigate whether users’ VR activities reflect various clinical variables of IGD in youth, we examined the relationships among the leisure time activity selection pattern, built-in response, and speech data obtained from the VR program, as well as symptom severity of internet gaming, psychiatric comorbidities, and motivation of participants reported through relevant questionnaire data. Methods Three types of VR content (understanding my daily activities at home, finding an alternative activity to internet gaming at home, expressing contradictory opinions toward a friend’s gaming beliefs) were developed by simulating the daily situations in which patients with IGD can select alternative free-time leisure activities. We examined internet addiction, mental health problems, and motivation for 23 IGD and 29 control participants. Behavioral and self-rated responses from VR, such as alternative activity selection data and speech patterns (speech time, speech satisfaction, and speech accordance), and results from various questionnaires were compared between groups. The correlations between IGD behaviors in VR and real-life behaviors assessed by questionnaire measures were analyzed. Results Significant correlations were found between internet gaming behavior and user activity data, such as speech and activity selection pattern, in our VR program. Our results showed that the IGD group had fewer leisure activities and preferred game or digital activities to other types of activities compared to controls, even in VR. There was a positive relationship between the viability of alternative leisure activities the participants selected in VR and the amount of perceived satisfaction from that activity (r=.748, P<.001). Speech accordance in the IGD group was lower than in the control group and was correlated negatively with Internet Addiction Test and Internet Addiction Test–gaming scores (r=.300, P=.03) but positively with users’ motivation (r=.312, P=.02). Conclusions The results from our VR program can provide information about daily activity patterns of youths with IGD and the relationship between user VR activities and IGD symptoms, which can be useful in applying VR technology to IGD management.

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Managing game-related conflict with parents for young adults with Internet gaming disorder: The development and feasibility study of a Virtual Reality Application (Preprint)

JMIR Serious Games ◽

10.2196/22494 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Yu-Bin Shin ◽

Jae-Jin Kim ◽

Hyunji Kim ◽

Soo-Jeong Kim ◽

Hyojung Eom ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Young Adults ◽

Feasibility Study ◽

Internet Gaming Disorder ◽

Gaming Disorder ◽

Internet Gaming ◽

Virtual Reality Application

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Choice of Leisure Activities by Adolescents and Adults With Internet Gaming Disorder: Development and Feasibility Study of a Virtual Reality Program (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.18473 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Narae Lee ◽

Jae-Jin Kim ◽

Yu-Bin Shin ◽

Hyojung Eom ◽

Min-Kyeong Kim ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Internet Addiction ◽

Leisure Time ◽

Leisure Activities ◽

Internet Gaming Disorder ◽

Gaming Disorder ◽

Time Activity ◽

Internet Gaming ◽

Selection Pattern ◽

At Home

BACKGROUND Excessive internet game use frequently leads to various physical, psychological, and social problems, and internet gaming disorder (IGD) has become a serious public health issue worldwide. Recently, virtual reality (VR) therapy has emerged as a promising method to increase psychological treatment motivation and accessibility. However, few studies have examined the potential of VR technology for the management of IGD, and VR content tailored to IGD characteristics remains scarce. OBJECTIVE This preliminary study aimed to examine the potential of a VR-based program that was designed to help users identify their leisure time use patterns, especially those related to gaming, and to modify their gaming overuse by alternative activities provided in the VR content. Moreover, to investigate whether users’ VR activities reflect various clinical variables of IGD in youth, we examined the relationships among the leisure time activity selection pattern, built-in response, and speech data obtained from the VR program, as well as symptom severity of internet gaming, psychiatric comorbidities, and motivation of participants reported through relevant questionnaire data. METHODS Three types of VR content (understanding my daily activities at home, finding an alternative activity to internet gaming at home, expressing contradictory opinions toward a friend’s gaming beliefs) were developed by simulating the daily situations in which patients with IGD can select alternative free-time leisure activities. We examined internet addiction, mental health problems, and motivation for 23 IGD and 29 control participants. Behavioral and self-rated responses from VR, such as alternative activity selection data and speech patterns (speech time, speech satisfaction, and speech accordance), and results from various questionnaires were compared between groups. The correlations between IGD behaviors in VR and real-life behaviors assessed by questionnaire measures were analyzed. RESULTS Significant correlations were found between internet gaming behavior and user activity data, such as speech and activity selection pattern, in our VR program. Our results showed that the IGD group had fewer leisure activities and preferred game or digital activities to other types of activities compared to controls, even in VR. There was a positive relationship between the viability of alternative leisure activities the participants selected in VR and the amount of perceived satisfaction from that activity (r=.748, P<.001). Speech accordance in the IGD group was lower than in the control group and was correlated negatively with Internet Addiction Test and Internet Addiction Test–gaming scores (r=.300, P=.03) but positively with users’ motivation (r=.312, P=.02). CONCLUSIONS The results from our VR program can provide information about daily activity patterns of youths with IGD and the relationship between user VR activities and IGD symptoms, which can be useful in applying VR technology to IGD management.

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Virtual reality-based application for young adults with Internet gaming disorder to manage game-related conflict with parents: A preliminary feasibility study (Preprint)

10.2196/preprints.22494 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Yu-Bin Shin ◽

Jae-Jin Kim ◽

Hyunji Kim ◽

Soo-Jeong Kim ◽

Hyojung Eom ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Virtual Reality ◽

Young Adults ◽

Coping Skills ◽

Internet Gaming Disorder ◽

Gaming Disorder ◽

Potential Utility ◽

Family Conflicts ◽

Internet Gaming ◽

Related Family ◽

Risk Benefit Assessment

BACKGROUND Individuals with Internet gaming disorder (IGD) report facing family conflicts repeatedly owing to their excessive Internet gaming. With recent advancements in virtual-reality (VR) technology, VR therapy has emerged as a promising method for the management of various psychiatric disorders, including IGD. Given that several risk and protective factors for young people with addiction can be influenced by their interpersonal context, the potential utility of VR-based applications for managing family conflicts needs to be examined with reference to IGD management. However, few studies have evaluated potential treatment modules related to interpersonal conflict management, such as emotion regulation and taking others’ perspective. OBJECTIVE This preliminary study aimed to examine the potential utility of a VR-based application in the management of game-related conflicts with parents in young adults with IGD and matched controls. METHODS Fifty-one young male adults (25 with IGD and 26 controls) were recruited for participation. We developed a virtual room where game-related family conflicts arise. Using this room, participants completed two VR tasks that required them to express anger and then implement coping skills (i.e., risk/benefit assessment of stopping a game and taking parents’ perspective) to deal with negative emotions in interpersonal conflict situations and to decrease one’s gaming behavior. RESULTS The results showed that immersion in our VR application tended to provoke negative emotion in individuals with IGD. Additionally, after risk/benefit assessment of stopping a game, the response of stopping a game immediately increased significantly in the IGD group, suggesting that patients’ gaming behavior could be changed using our VR program. Furthermore, in individuals with IGD, longer gaming hours were associated with lower level of perceived usefulness of the coping skills training. CONCLUSIONS These findings indicate that our VR application may be useful for implementing more desirable behaviors and managing gaming-related family conflicts in individuals with IGD. Our VR application may offer an alternative for individuals with IGD to learn how a vicious cycle of conflicts is developed and to easily and safely assess their dysfunctional thoughts behind the conflicts (i.e., perceived unreasonable risks of stopping a game and thoughts acting as a barrier to taking others’ perspective).

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