Development of a Web-based Tailored Intervention for Excessive Gaming

Playing video games is one of the common leisure activities among youths in Malaysia. They treat gaming not only as entertainment but also as a means of socializing with their friends. However, when too much time is devoted into gaming and causes disruption in their daily lives, they might become pathological gamers. The paper proposes the development of a web intervention, Smart Garners, to influence youth behavior towards online gaming. The theories that have been studied and chosen to be applied in the design of the web intervention are Gagne's Learning Theory, Cognitive Dissonance and Fogg's Behavioral Model. We designed a preliminary lab experiment to assess the feasibility of our design approach by recruiting 30 university students, age ranging from 18 to 22 to participate in the experiment. The garners were presented with video clips that are tailored base on their gaming behavior, followed by persuasive communication emphasizing the negative effects of excessive gaming and suggested different methods on living a healthy lifestyle. Our preliminary study revealed that both learning theory and cognitive dissonance are able to trigger their thoughts and feelings regarding their gaming behavior and intentions to make positive behavioral changes.