Michelle Colder Carras

Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health | JHSPH · Department of International Health

Objective Though there is no consensus on its definition, problematic Internet use (PIU), especially in adolescents, is concerning. Research into risk factors is needed. We explored associations between lifestyle and individual characteristics associated with PIU in a nationally representative sample of adolescents. Methods Students (Grades: 7–12;...

As reviewers, editors, and researchers with lived experience of mental health challenges, addiction, and/or psychosocial distress/disability, the authors have struggled to find an adequate way to address inappropriate or misleading use of the term “participatory methods” to describe research that involves people with lived experience in only a supe...

As reviewers, editors, and researchers with lived experience of mental health challenges, addiction, and/or psychosocial distress/disability, the authors have struggled to find an adequate way to address inappropriate or misleading use of the term "participatory methods" to describe research that involves people with lived experience in only a supe...

BACKGROUND Grassroots peer support can be useful when barriers exist to seeking or obtaining mental healthcare. Digital peer support interventions increase access to mental health support and can broaden the reach of evidence-based interventions. Video games and the online communities that spring up around them allow players to connect in a natural...

In August of 2021, China imposed severe restrictions on children’s online gaming time. We argue that such a policy may seem useful on the surface but does not reflect the current evidence concerning prevention of disordered gaming. Videogame play is normal for children worldwide, and like other leisure activities can lead to benefits for the majori...

Background Disordered Internet gaming is thought to be perpetuated by one's need to escape their real-life distress or mental health symptoms, which may in turn generate depressive feelings. Nevertheless, moderate engagement with Internet games has also been suggested to provide relief, thus improving one's mood. This study aspires to clarify the c...

Traditional mental health services are often not enough to meet the needs of people at risk for suicide, especially in populations where help-seeking is stigmatized. Stack Up, a non-profit veteran organization whose goal is to use video games to bring veterans together, recognized a need in its gaming-focused online community and created the Overwa...

Internet gambling has become a popular activity among some youth. Vulnerable youth may be particularly at risk due to limited harm reduction and enforcement measures. This article explores age restrictions and other harm reduction measures relating to youth and young adult online gambling. A systematic rapid review was conducted by searching eight...

Gaming disorder has been described as an urgent public health problem and has garnered many systematic reviews of its associations with other health conditions. However, review methodology can contribute to bias in the conclusions, leading to research, policy, and patient care that are not truly evidence-based. This study followed a pre-registered...

In recent years, investment in participatory research methods within mental health services research has grown. Participatory efforts are often limited in scope, however, and attention to research leadership is largely absent from discourse about stakeholder involvement in the United States. This Open Forum calls for investment in building a pipeli...

Background: Little is known about strategies or mechanics to improve self-regulation of video game play that could be developed into novel interventions. This study used a participatory approach with the gaming community to uncover insider knowledge about techniques to promote healthy play and prevent gaming disorder. Methods: We used a pragmatic a...

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has revealed many areas of public health preparedness that are lacking, especially in lower-and middle-income countries. Digital interventions provide many opportunities for strengthening health systems and could be vital resources in the current public health emergency. We provide several use cases for i...

UNSTRUCTURED The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has revealed many areas of public health preparedness that are lacking, especially in lower- and middle-income countries. Digital interventions provide many opportunities for strengthening health systems and could be vital resources in the current public health emergency. We provide several u...

Rationale: Mental and behavioral health recovery includes concepts related not just to symptom improvement, but also to participating in activities that contribute to wellness and a meaningful life. Video game play can relieve stress and provide a way to connect, which may be especially important for military veterans. Objective: We examined how...

The proposed diagnosis of Internet gaming disorder (IGD) in DSM-5 has been criticized for “borrowing” criteria related to substance addiction, as this might result in misclassifying highly involved gamers as having a disorder. In this paper, we took a person-centered statistical approach to group adolescent gamers by levels of addiction-related sym...

We greatly appreciate the care and thought that is evident in the ten commentaries that discuss our debate paper, the majority of which argued in favor of a formalized ICD-11 gaming disorder. We agree that there are some people whose play of video games is related to life problems. We believe that understanding this population and the nature and se...

We greatly appreciate the care and thought that is evident in the ten commentaries that discuss our debate paper, the majority of which argued in favor of a formalized ICD-11 gaming disorder. We agree that there are some people whose play of video games isrelated to life problems. We believe that understanding this population and the nature and sev...

Objective: Popular media applications have been shown to benefit people with severe mental illness by facilitating communication and social support, helping patients cope with or manage symptoms, and providing a way to monitor or predict mental health states. Although many studies of technology use by individuals with severe mental illness have fo...

Emerging research suggests that commercial, off-the-shelf video games have potential applications in preventive and therapeutic medicine. Despite these promising findings, systematic efforts to characterize and better understand this potential have not been undertaken. Serious academic study of the therapeutic potential of commercial video games fa...

• Cultural knowledge is important for defining mental disorders in context. • We asked groups of engaged gamers to submit and rank criteria of game “addiction”. • We compared these criteria to proposed domains for Internet gaming disorder (IGD). • Gamers agreed with some criteria and proposed novel ideas from other domains. • Participatory approach...

INTRODUCTION Despite efforts to transform mental health care for US veterans and service members, veterans continue to suffer from service-related mental health problems and high rates of suicide. Commercial forms of media such as social networking and video games have been shown to have mental health promoting aspects. This study sought insights o...

Pilot studies of commercial games and gaming communities provide early evidence of health benefits in a variety of areas. Systematic efforts to characterize and better understand this potential have not been undertaken. We provide background information on the use of commercial video games for the prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of mental...

Following the recent changes to the diagnostic category for addictive disorders in DSM-5, it is urgent to clarify what constitutes behavioural addiction to have a clear direction for future research and classification. However, in the years following the release of DSM-5, an expanding body of research has increasingly classified engagement in a wide...

Aims: Examining online social interactions along with patterns of video gaming behaviors and game addiction symptoms has the potential to enrich our understanding of disorders related to excessive video game play. Methods: We performed latent class analysis in a sample of 9733 adolescents based on heavy use of games, social networking and instant m...

Concerns about problematic gaming behaviors deserve our full attention. However, we claim that it is far from clear that these problems can or should be attributed to a new disorder. The empirical basis for a Gaming Disorder proposal, such as in the new ICD-11, suffers from fundamental issues. Our main concerns are the low quality of the research b...

Concerns about problematic gaming behaviors deserve our full attention. However, we claim that it is far from clear that these problems can or should be attributed to a new disorder. The empirical basis for a Gaming Disorder proposal, such as in the new ICD-11, suffers from fundamental issues. Our main concerns are the low quality of the research b...

...As a commercial digital game, Pokémon GO may be better at engaging users, especially currently sedentary ones, than health apps disguised as games. Pokémon GO not only builds on the appeal of a massively successful gaming franchise but also adds a hefty dose of 21st century tech. Kids and adults alike seem to be having no problem walking for cit...

We found that when combinations of online and gaming behaviors are considered as part of a PG syndrome, gamers could be clearly separated into social and non-social subgroups, with social classes reporting fewer feelings of problematic use at similar levels of play. These findings suggest that patterns of symptoms and gaming behavior thought to del...

Note that this is the presentation that accompanies our forthcoming article (2018) ”When addiction symptoms and problems diverge: A latent class analysis of problematic gaming in a representative multinational sample of European adolescents”. The article has undergone name changes but this presentation and the article are based on the same latent c...

The criteria for Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD), a disorder proposed in the Emerging Measures section of DSM 5,1 have been criticized for, among other things, a lack of specificity as they relate to the population of gamers.2 For example, the traditional addiction criterion of preoccupation may reflect the careful planning that goes into increasing...

This commentary paper critically discusses the recent debate paper by Petry et al. (2014) that argued there was now an international consensus for assessing Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). Our collective opinions vary considerably regarding many different aspects of online gaming. However, we contend that the paper by Petry and colleagues does not...

Mobile health (mHealth) interventions are rapidly gaining popularity for their potential to improve public health, and many developing countries see them as an important resource for frontline health workers (FHW). However, best practices for implementing and evaluating the effectiveness of programs and projects is lacking. This report summarizes c...

Objective: Past studies have shown that many individuals who use antidepressants have no current or lifetime history of mental disorders. However, recent studies suggest that the one-time retrospective evaluation of mental disorders commonly used in such studies may substantially underestimate the true lifetime prevalence of mental disorders. We e...

The National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention Research Prioritization Task Force (RPTF) has created a prioritized national research agenda with the potential to rapidly and substantially reduce the suicide burden in the U.S. if fully funded and implemented. Viable, sustainable scientific research agendas addressing challenging public health i...

This paper is a review of the state of play of research linking videogaming and flourishing, and explores the role of videogames and technology to improve mental health and well-being. Its purpose is to develop understandings about the positive intersection of gaming and well-being, to document evidence regarding links between videogames and positi...

Objective: Recent years have witnessed an expansion of Internet- and mobile-phone-based interventions for health promotion, yet few studies have focused on the use of technology by individuals with mental illness. This study examined the extent to which patients at an inner-city community psychiatry clinic had access to information and communicati...

Responding to concerns about the negative impacts of videogames on young people’s mental health, as well as emerging evidence of positive impacts of videogames, the Young and Well CRC’s Gaming Research Group have compiled this report on the state of play of research linking videogame play and flourishing mental health. The report specifically explo...

On the basis of previous work, freshmen should evidence improved health after writing about their thoughts and feelings associated with entering college. One hundred thirty subjects were assigned to write either about coming to college or about superficial topics for 20 min on 3 days. One fourth of the subjects in each group wrote during the 1st, 5...