Understanding the Antecedents of Mobile Game Addiction: The Roles of Perceived Visibility, Perceived Enjoyment and Flow

With the rapid development of mobile games and the roaring growth of market size, mobile game addiction is becoming a public concern. Hence, understanding the reasons behind mobile game addiction is worthwhile. Based on previous studies and two salient features of mobile games (e.g., hedonic and sociality), a research model is developed to examine the antecedents of mobile game addiction. Our proposed model is tested using a survey from 234 mobile game users and the results confirm most of our hypotheses. Specifically, perceived visibility and perceived enjoyment are found to be positively associated with flow which in turn affects addiction. Besides the indirect effect of perceived visibility on addiction via flow, perceived visibility is found to have a direct effect on addiction too. The implications for theory and practice are also discussed