The Effect of Flow Experience on Online Game Addiction during the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Moderating Effect of Activity Passion

Pinyapat Kiatsakared and Kuan-Yu Chen ()
Additional contact information
Pinyapat Kiatsakared: Department of Tropical Agriculture and International Cooperation, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 91201, Taiwan
Kuan-Yu Chen: Department of Recreational Sport & Health Promotion, National Pingtung University of Science and Technology, Pingtung 91201, Taiwan

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-14

Abstract: Stay-at-home mandates and quarantines related to the coronavirus disease of 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic have led to significantly increased participation in online gaming. However, as players continue to participate in online games, it may also trigger online game addiction. This study aimed to explore the relationship between players’ flow experience and online game addiction, and to verify whether differences in the type of passion lead to online game addiction. This study used the structural equation model (SEM) to verify the causal relationship between the constructs and then considered model implications with the fit index measurement standard. After investigating 232 players who are passionate about online games, the analysis results show that the higher the flow experience experienced by online game players, the more likely it is to lead to online gaming addiction. Further verification results show that players’ activity passion significantly moderates the relationship between flow experience and online game addiction, and players with obsessive passion are more likely to experience online game addiction than players with harmonious passion. Future work will explore the causes of online game addiction from different perspectives.

Keywords: activity passion; COVID-19; flow experience; online game addiction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/19/12364/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/19/12364/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:19:p:12364-:d:928331

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().