Social Learning Behaviors and Eye-Tracking Metrics Among Online Gamers

Social learning is ubiquitous across various species, enabling individuals to quickly acquire critical information and engage in adaptive behaviors in uncertain or unfamiliar environments. From animals leveraging cues from peers in foraging contexts to consumers making choices based on others’ actions on digital platforms, social learning provides individuals with an efficient and low-cost means of obtaining information. The rapid popularity of online games reflects, to some extent, the powerful influence of social learning: a new game can often cascade through specific groups or even broader populations in a short time through observation, imitation, and social transmission among players. Given the high prevalence of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and its potential harms, systematically exploring the mechanisms of social learning in the context of online games will not only contribute to a deeper understanding of the formation and maintenance of gaming behaviors but may also provide an important theoretical basis for identifying cognitive and behavioral risk factors for IGD.