The partial truths of compensatory and poor-get-poorer internet use theories: More highly involved videogame players experience greater psychosocial benefits

By a News Reporter-Staff News Editor at Computer Weekly News -- Investigators publish new report on Psychosocial. According to news originating from Fort Collins, Colorado, by VerticalNews correspondents, research stated, “Research has established loneliness as a good predictor of intensive Internet use. But it is not fully understood whether Internet activity lessens lonely individuals’ felt distress (known as positive psycho social ‘compensation’), or by contrast further magnifies it (the ‘poor-get-poorer’ hypothesis).”

Financial support for this research came from U.S. National Science Foundation.

Our news journalists obtained a quote from the research from Colorado State University, “Focused on online videogames in particular, we use qualitative cultural psychiatric interviews (N = 20) and path analysis of online survey data (N = 3629) to model pathways connecting loneliness, videogame involvement, and positive and negative online gaming experiences. Informed by social signaling theory, we hypothesize that lonely individuals who are intensively involved in online videogames (as opposed to playing casually) will experience more positive play experiences, given the way that such gamers’ costly expenditures of time, energy, and resources ‘signal’ their commitment and also their insiderness to gaming communities, thus fostering for them a greater sense of social inclusion and support. By contrast, lonely garners who fail to engage videogames in this intensive and socially supportive manner can instead compound their life distress with additional problems related to their online play. Ironically, it is thus gamers displaying dimensions of what seems on the surface to be ‘addictive’ play-but is better described in this context as intensive gaming involvement-who experience the greatest psychosocial benefits from their play. Our research aims to add nuance to debates about how the Internet shapes the mental health of distressed emerging adults in particular.”

According to the news editors, the research concluded: “Rather than posing a single solution, we posit that the answer depends on the manner in which lonely and distressed individuals engage with life online.”

For more information on this research see: The partial truths of compensatory and poor-get-poorer internet use theories: More highly involved videogame players experience greater psychosocial benefits. Computers in Human Behavior , 2018;78():10-25. Computers in Human Behavior can be contacted at: Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd, The Boulevard, Langford Lane, Kidlington, Oxford OX5 1GB, England. (Elsevier - www.elsevier.com; Computers in Human Behavior - http://www.journals.elsevier.com/computers-in-human-behavior/)

The news correspondents report that additional information may be obtained from J.G. Snodgrass, Colorado State University, Dept. of Anthropol, Fort Collins, CO 80523, United States. Additional authors for this research include A. Bagwell, J.M. Patry, H.J.F. Dengah, C. Smarr-Foster, M. Van Oostenburg and M.G. Lacy.

The direct object identifier (DOI) for that additional information is: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2017.09.020. This DOI is a link to an online electronic document that is either free or for purchase, and can be your direct source for a journal article and its citation.

CITATION: (2018-01-10), New Psychosocial Findings from Colorado State University Reported (The partial truths of compensatory and poor-get-poorer internet use theories: More highly involved videogame players experience greater psychosocial benefits), Computer Weekly News, 485, ISSN: 1944-1606, BUTTER® ID: 014933824

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