Explicit and implicit effects of gaming content on social media on the behavior of young adults

Online games have become highly popular for recreation and training, but excessive gameplay can impair mental and physical health, particularly in young people. Simultaneously, social media platforms (e.g., YouTube, Twitter, Instagram) expose users to abundant gaming-related content, potentially shaping gaming habits. Prior cue reactivity research primarily used game images or videos lacking social media context, limiting ecological validity. The study aims to assess how real-world gaming content on social media affects young adults' behavior both explicitly (self-reported desire) and implicitly (automatic attitudes via IAT). The authors hypothesized that gaming-related social media cues significantly influence behavior explicitly and implicitly, and that cue reactivity relates to personality traits (e.g., neuroticism), self-efficacy, impulsivity, and cognitive flexibility.

The psychocognitive model posits that addiction-related cues trigger positive expectations driving addictive behavior. Experimental studies on gaming cue reactivity inform excessive gameplay pathogenesis, though typically using stimuli without social media context. Explicit self-report predicts only some behavioral variability; implicit processes inaccessible to conscious awareness contribute additional variance. Gaming-related social media content is pervasive and attended both consciously and unconsciously, necessitating explicit and implicit assessments. Individual vulnerability factors repeatedly linked to problematic game use include neuroticism (associated with problematic online gaming), self-efficacy (lower in excessive gamers), impulsivity (linked to greater gaming time), and cognitive flexibility (reduced in IGD). These factors also modulate cue reactivity across addictions (e.g., neuroticism/extraversion with alcohol cues, self-efficacy reducing cue-induced craving, impulsivity moderating food cue reactivity, CF impairments in cocaine dependence).

Design: Cross-sectional experimental study assessing explicit gaming desire and implicit attitudes toward gaming-related social media content, and their associations with psychological factors. Participants: 26 healthy male volunteers aged 19–25 who casually played online games; data from 25 analyzed due to one technical error. Inclusion: Regular online gaming (≥1 hour/week); exclusion: meeting DSM-5 IGD criteria, psychiatric disorders, head trauma, serious medical/surgical illness, substance abuse, current smoking. Measures of gaming behavior: weekly gaming time and gaming history; Internet Addiction Test (IATest); predicted IQ via Japanese National Adult Reading Test short form. Ethical approval obtained; written informed consent collected. Explicit Desire Task (EDT): Sixteen gaming-related social media videos (different popular Japanese online games: shooting, role-playing, puzzle, sports) and sixteen matched neutral videos (furniture, hygiene, travel, work) were presented pseudo-randomly. Matching considered complexity, content, design, luminance, color, action, and presence of faces. After each video, participants rated current gaming desire from 1 (no desire) to 9 (extreme desire). Explicit desire score computed as mean desire for gaming-related videos minus mean desire for neutral videos (higher scores indicate greater explicit desire). Implemented in E-Prime. Implicit Association Test (IAT): Adapted to gaming-related social media pictures. Target categories: game vs. work; attribute categories: positive (happy, fun, attractive, excited) vs. negative (painful, sad, difficult, boring). Four stimuli per category; seven blocks following standard IAT procedures. Gaming-related pictures were captured from social media (popular Japanese online games), and work pictures were matched on visual characteristics. Participants categorized stimuli quickly and accurately. IAT effect computed using the improved scoring algorithm: higher scores reflect faster responses in congruent pairings (game-positive/work-negative) vs. incongruent (game-negative/work-positive), indicating stronger implicit positive attitudes toward gaming-related content. Implemented in E-Prime. Familiarity Ratings: Post-task ratings of familiarity for each game in EDT and IAT from 1 (very unfamiliar) to 9 (very familiar). Psychological Measures: Personality traits via NEO-FFI (neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness, conscientiousness), self-efficacy scale, impulsivity via BIS-11, and cognitive flexibility via CF scale. Higher scores denote higher levels of each construct. Statistical Analyses: Normality assessed with Shapiro–Wilk (p<0.05 indicates non-normal). Correlations between explicit desire/IAT effect and age, IQ, IATest scores, weekly gaming time, gaming history, NEO-FFI dimensions, self-efficacy, BIS-11, and CF scale conducted using Pearson or Spearman based on variable normality. Significance threshold p<0.05 (two-tailed).

Sample characteristics: Mean age 21.5 ± 2.2; predicted IQ 108.5 ± 7.4; Internet Addiction Test 33.5 ± 8.3; weekly gaming time 5.7 ± 5.4 hours; gaming history 10.1 ± 3.3 years. No severe internet addiction. Explicit desire: Gaming-related cues elicited significantly higher desire than neutral cues (game 4.09 ± 1.52 vs. neutral 1.63 ± 0.87; p<0.01). Implicit attitudes (IAT): Incongruent condition latencies were significantly longer than congruent (congruent 610.2 ± 88.1 ms vs. incongruent 1090.4 ± 156.8 ms; p<0.01), indicating robust positive implicit attitudes toward gaming-related social media content. Familiarity: Not significantly correlated with explicit desire (Pearson r=0.24, p=0.24) or IAT effect (Pearson r=0.26, p=0.21). Correlations: Explicit desire positively correlated with neuroticism (Pearson r=0.48, p=0.02). IAT effect negatively correlated with self-efficacy (Pearson r=−0.41, p=0.04) and cognitive flexibility (Pearson r=−0.43, p=0.03). No significant correlations with impulsivity (explicit desire: r=0.36, p=0.08; IAT effect: r=0.26, p=0.22), Internet Addiction Test, weekly gaming time, age, IQ, or other NEO-FFI domains.

Findings show that real-world gaming-related content on social media can elevate explicit gaming desire and is associated with strong positive implicit attitudes among young adults, broadening previous cue reactivity research to ecologically valid stimuli. The explicit association with neuroticism suggests individuals high in neuroticism may be more susceptible to gaming-related social media cues, aligning with literature linking neuroticism to problematic online behaviors. Negative associations between IAT effect and self-efficacy and cognitive flexibility highlight protective roles of these constructs: higher self-efficacy and greater flexibility may buffer against automatic positive attitudes toward gaming cues. Lack of association with impulsivity in this casual-gamer sample contrasts with some addiction literature, possibly due to the non-clinical, low-use cohort. Overall, the results underscore the significance of social media gaming content in shaping both conscious desire and unconscious attitudes, informing prevention strategies targeting vulnerable individuals.

Gaming-related social media content influences young adults’ behavior both explicitly and implicitly. Individual differences matter: higher neuroticism relates to stronger explicit desire, while higher self-efficacy and cognitive flexibility relate to weaker implicit positive attitudes. Future work should employ longitudinal designs, include clinical IGD populations, and use ecologically valid digital media cues to elucidate causal mechanisms and develop targeted interventions to prevent gaming addiction.

The study included only young male casual gamers, limiting generalizability to IGD patients, non-gamers, females, and broader populations. Interest/familiarity with specific games may vary, though familiarity was not correlated with outcomes. Naturalistic social media stimuli posed challenges in perfectly matching neutral and gaming cues on all visual parameters. The Internet Addiction Test may not fully capture internet game–specific attitudes. Multiple comparisons were not corrected due to the exploratory design. Psychological measures relied on self-report, though steps were taken to minimize bias. The sample size was small, albeit comparable to prior IAT studies.