Gaming Addiction Test — Free 9-Question Self-Check

Gaming Overuse (SGAS) is a 9-question screen about how you have been doing with mobile, PC or console games over the past 12 months. For each statement you choose “not at all”, “sometimes”, “often” or “almost always”, scored 0 to 3, and the nine answers add up to a total from 0 to 27. It does not ask which games or genres you play.

The first questions ask whether games fill your thoughts even when you are not playing, whether you get irritable or anxious when you cannot play, whether you need to play longer to feel the same satisfaction, and whether cutting back has not worked. The rest ask about losing interest in other hobbies, keeping on despite knowing it causes problems, hiding how much you play, using games to escape bad moods, and harm to school, work or relationships. So the test is not about how much you love games, but about how much games are steering your life.

A total of 0–6 means you are keeping a healthy balance between gaming and everyday life; 7–13 is mild caution, with a slight pull toward games; 14–20 shows a clear overuse tendency that is affecting daily life; 21–27 points to a high risk that may be hard to manage on your own. This is a screening result, not a diagnosis. Even with the same total, the questions that scored high differ from person to person, so it is worth rereading the items you rated highest.

Scores can shift when a new game has just come out, during vacations with lots of free time, or in stressful periods such as exam season. If a parent or teacher is watching while you answer, it is easy to pick lower options than what is true, so answering in private, calmly and honestly, gives a more accurate picture. Answer about what actually happened, not about how you would like to be.

The SGAS consists of 9 items written by Soundary with reference to the nine domains of Internet Gaming Disorder that the American Psychiatric Association (APA) set out in DSM-5 (2013). Pontes and Griffiths (2015) developed a research tool covering the same domains, the IGDS9-SF, but this test is not a translation of it. In a class, a teacher can create a group link: students start right away without signing in, each person sees only their own score, and the group sees only an anonymous distribution.

When creating the group, a post-test can be scheduled 2, 4 or 12 weeks later to compare before and after a lesson. On your own, saving your result lets you compare it with your previous score next time. Whatever the score, if sleep is falling apart or school, work or plans keep getting pushed aside, talk with a mental health professional or a counseling service.