Examining and analyzing the psychological determinants of virtual addiction: a meta-analysis of existing research

Today, addiction is not only limited to the use of drugs and alcohol, but also includes other addictive behaviors such as cyberspace addiction, which deserves consideration. Virtual addiction is defined in the form of mismanagement in the use of this technology and excessive and out-of-control use, which is associated with negative consequences. Therefore, many studies have been conducted in the field of virtual addiction, especially in recent years. But the basic problem of most of these studies is the lack of mastery over all aspects of the problem. Mixed research using the meta-analytical approach is a response to this gap. Based on this, the purpose of the current research is to apply the meta-analysis method in order to combine and analyze the results of the studies conducted on the psychological factors affecting virtual addiction. For this purpose, 21 research documents on the psychological factors affecting virtual addiction were selected for review. In the meta-analysis process, in the first step, the assumptions of no publication bias and the homogeneity of the studies were checked, and the results showed heterogeneity in the report of the effect size in all studies, and on the other hand, the lack of publication bias was confirmed. Next, the effect size coefficient of psychological factors affecting virtual addiction was evaluated by using the second version of 2CMA software. The findings showed that the combined effect size of the psychological factors affecting virtual addiction is equal to 0.216,ical factors.