A study finds that men with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) are likely to use video games as an escape from their disorder. The study, published in the journal Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, of the American Psychological Association, was conducted by the University of Bergen.

The study was quite large, with over 20,000 participants. Each participant answered questions about their video game use.  Seven criteria were used to identify if an addiction was present. The criteria included the following: You think about playing the game all day long, you spend increasing amounts of time on games, you play games to forget about real life, others have unsuccessfully tried to reduce your game use, you feel bad when you are unable to play, you have fights with others over your time spent on games and you neglect other important activities to play games. Those who related to at least 4 of the criteria were likely to be addicted.

They found that those with ADHD and other psychiatric disorders like obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and depression were more likely to be addicted to video games. The researchers state that the games function as an escape mechanism. It was also found that game usage differed between genders. Men were more likely to gamble online and women were more likely to use social media to game.