You have no doubt heard of Internet addiction and its related cousin, video game addiction. These are noxious labels that have little basis in solid research.
What is appropriate is to label some people’s specific activities online as problematic, whether it’s viewing porn, updating your Facebook profile, or playing video games. Professionals and researchers label this kind of behavior based upon the specific issue, for instance, “problematic video game play” (or PVGP). This is often not a time-based determinant (since time spent online doing X activity is completely relative to one’s environment, peer group, work needs, year in which measured, etc.).
Is problematic video game playing something related to poor time management skills (“Oops, I just lost track of time. I thought doing Y task in this game would take 10 minutes and it took 2 hours!”). Or does it have something to do with a person having attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or characteristics of ADHD, as prior research has suggested?
Researchers (Tolchinsky & Jefferson, 2011) from Eastern Michigan University recently set to find out.