Self-control and online gaming addiction among high school students: A cross-sectional study
DOI: https://doi.org/10.56922/mhc.v5i6.4414
Adolescents Digital Technology Online Game Addiction Self-Control Students
Abstract
Background: The rapid development of digital technology has increased adolescents’ exposure to online games. In Indonesia, internet penetration reached 79.5% in 2024, representing 221.56 million internet users. Among adolescents aged 10–18 years, 13,840 of 25,164 respondents (55.0%) reported playing online games, and 13.52% of online game players reported playing for more than four hours per day. Excessive gaming may contribute to addictive behaviour, highlighting the importance of self-control in regulating adolescents’ gaming behaviour.
Purpose: To determine the relationship between self-control and online game addiction among students.
Method: This quantitative study employed a correlational design with a cross-sectional approach. The population consisted of 122 eleventh-grade students, of whom 93 were selected using purposive sampling. Data were collected using 26-item self-control and 26-item online game addiction questionnaires, each measured using a four-point Likert scale. The Cronbach’s alpha coefficients were 0.726 and 0.858, respectively. Data were analysed using the Pearson Product-Moment correlation test.
Results: Most respondents were 17 years old (40.8%) and male (57.0%). The mean self-control score was 43.74 ± 9.504, while the mean online game addiction score was 86.26 ± 9.504. The Kolmogorov–Smirnov test indicated no evidence against normality for either variable (p = 0.200). The reported Pearson correlation analysis yielded a perfect negative correlation between self-control and online game addiction (r = −1.000; p < 0.001). Because a perfect negative correlation is unusual for independently measured psychosocial variables, this result requires verification using the original respondent-level data and scoring procedures.
Conclusion: The reported analysis indicated a negative relationship between self-control and online game addiction among students. However, the reported perfect negative correlation should be considered provisional until the original data, item coding, reverse scoring, total-score calculation, missing-data handling, data entry, and analysis syntax have been verified. Given the cross-sectional design, the observed relationship cannot be interpreted as evidence that self-control causes or prevents online game addiction.
Keywords: Adolescents; Digital Technology; Online Game Addiction; Self-Control; Students.
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