Effect of Digital Gaming Addiction on Positive Mental Health of High School Students

Abstract

The objective of this study was to analyze the effect of digital gaming addiction on the mental health of high school students. For the present study, a total of 1000 high school students were selected from the Durg district of Chhattisgarh. The sample included 500 male and 500 female students, representing both government and private schools of the district. A stratified random sampling technique was adopted to ensure proper representation of the population. To assess digital gaming addiction among high school students, the DGAS-SSKP prepared by Saini and Kaur was used, while positive mental health was assessed through an inventory prepared by Agashe and Helode (2007). The result reveals that students with a lower magnitude of digital gaming addiction have the highest mean score on positive mental health, followed by those students with average digital gaming addiction levels, while students with high levels of digital gaming addiction have the lowest mean score on positive mental health. The ANOVA statistics confirm that these differences in positive mental health across various levels of digital gaming addiction (F=68.95, p<.05).  In conclusion, digital gaming addiction has a potentially detrimental impact on students' positive mental health, hence increased gaming addiction lowers the positive mental health of high school students. The findings suggest the need for awareness programs in schools to address excessive gaming and its impact on positive mental health