Deficits in cognitive functions across different types of Internet-use disorders: Gender-related differences

Background: Individuals with substance-use disorders, compared to those without, show deficient performance in cognitive tasks. Similarly, theoretical models on behavioral addictions assume cognitive deficits to contribute to difficulties to control a specific behavior and thus are associated with the development and maintenance of addictive behaviors. Empirical evidence on cognitive dysfunctions in gaming disorder and other types of Internet-use disorders (IUDs) is mixed. With this study we aimed to compare cognitive functions between clinically relevant cases with IUDs with unaffected control groups.

Methods: In a multi-center study (FOR2974), we investigate affective and cognitive mechanisms of specific IUDs, namely gaming disorder, buying-shopping disorder, pornography use disorder, and social network use disorder. Using a structured diagnostic interview, participants (N=962) were grouped as showing non-problematic (n=434), risky (n=279), or pathological use (n=249). All participants underwent an extensive laboratory testing including standard cognitive tasks such as the Game of Dice Task (GDT), Modified Card Sorting Test (MCST), and Stroop test as well as tasks including IUD-related stimuli, such as a Go/No-Go paradigm. 

Results: Overall, the pathological group showed weakest mean performance in all tasks. However, the differences were not significant for GDT and otherwise they were of small effect sizes only (all eta² < .03). Gender-related differences were especially visible in the pathological group, with females showing higher error rates in the MCST and the Go/No-Go task. Post-hoc analyses show that effects vary between different types of IUDs.

Conclusions: IUDs are associated with mild cognitive deficits, however, performance deficits are less pronounced than was to be expected from research on substance-related addictions. Gender-related differences appear to be relevant indicated by females with IUDs showing weaker executive functions, compared to males. The extent of performance differences in cognitive tasks appears to vary between specific types of IUDs.