Extent of PUBG Addiction among Indian and Tibetan Students: A Comparative Study

Among online gaming applications, PUBG is gaining popularity day by day. The present study aimed to compare the extent of PUBG addiction among Indian and Tibetan students. The sample consisted of a total of 272 individuals playing PUBG of which 162 were Indian students and 110 were Tibetan students.  The respondents completed PUBG addiction test (PAT) developed by D’Souza, Manish, and Deeksha (2019) in one session. PAT measured addiction in 7 factors– disengagement, lack of control, excessive use, obsession, distress, escapism, and over-enthusiasm & impulsive use. The data were analyzed using the Chi-square test for the extent of usage of PUBG by Indian and Tibetan students and Two-way ANOVA was employed to find out the influence of country and gender on various components of PAT.  Results revealed that 7.7% of the total sample selected was definitely addicted to PUBG, 36.8% of them were addict prone. Tibetan students were more addicted to PUBG than Indian students. In most of the components and total PUBG scores, Tibetan students had higher scores than Indian students. In the escapism component of PAT, female students of India had higher scores, whereas, among Tibetan students, male students had higher escapism.