Behind the Screen: The Effect of Social and Emotional Loneliness on Digital Game Addiction

Especially in recent years, digital game addiction has been rapidly increasing among children and adolescents and negatively affects the social skill development of individuals in adolescence. At this point, it is noteworthy that digital game addiction is more common among children and adolescents who experience social and emotional loneliness and that it may have serious consequences at an individual and societal level in the long term. This research was designed to reveal the effect of social and emotional loneliness on young people's digital game addiction. In the study where the quantitative research method was used, data were collected from 402 university students via face-to-face survey technique. The research results indicate that men have a higher level of digital game addiction than women. It was determined that as the frequency of participants installing digital games on their smart devices increased, there was an increase in their digital game addiction levels. Similarly, as the frequency of university students purchasing digital games increased, the increase in their digital game addictions manifested itself. An important finding of this research is that social, emotional familial and emotional romantic loneliness has a positive and significant effect on digital game addiction. It can also be said that the duration of playing digital games partially mediates the relationship between social and emotional loneliness and digital game addiction.