HealthScorer

Internet Gaming Disorder Test (IGDS9-SF)

Take the IGDS9-SF — 9 questions on Internet Gaming Disorder, the DSM-5-TR and ICD-11 6C51 framework. 2 minutes. Free. Results stay in your browser.

Last updated: Sources verified:

What you are about to take

The IGDS9-SF is a 9-question short-form screen for Internet Gaming Disorder, published by Halley Pontes and Mark Griffiths in 2015 (Computers in Human Behavior). The 9 items map directly onto the nine DSM-5 criteria — one item per criterion. Each is rated 1 to 5 on a Likert scale; the total runs from 9 to 45. About 2 minutes. No signup. Your answers stay in your browser — we never see them. Start the test below ↓

  • Validated by Pontes & Griffiths (2015, Computers in Human Behavior)
  • DSM-5-TR Internet Gaming Disorder criteria (APA, 2022)
  • ICD-11 6C51 Gaming Disorder framework (WHO, effective January 2022)
  • 2 minutes, 9 questions
  • Private — answers never leave your device
  • Free to use under the original publication

How the score is calculated

You answer nine questions about your gaming over the last 12 months. Each is rated 1 (Never), 2 (Rarely), 3 (Sometimes), 4 (Often), 5 (Very often). The nine numbers sum to a total between 9 and 45.

Total scoreBandWhat it typically means
9–20Low / non-problematic gamingBelow the band where DSM-5 / ICD-11 criteria cluster
21–30Moderate concernGaming occupies meaningful space; disruptive criteria not strongly endorsed
31–36At-risk / probable IGDApproximates the DSM-5 cut-off (5 of 9 criteria at level 3+)
37–45Likely IGD patternMost or all 9 criteria endorsed; clinical-level pattern

The 31 threshold corresponds roughly to endorsing 5 or more of the 9 IGDS items at level 3 (Sometimes) or higher — the DSM-5-derived cut-off proposed by Petry 2014 and used in the Pontes 2015 validation.

What gaming disorder is — and is not

Gaming Disorder, as defined by the WHO in ICD-11 (code 6C51, effective January 2022), is a pattern of gaming behaviour — digital or video-game playing — characterised by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other interests and daily activities, and continuation or escalation despite negative consequences. The pattern must be present for at least 12 months, and must result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.

Internet Gaming Disorder in DSM-5-TR (APA, 2022, Section III) uses 9 criteria — preoccupation, withdrawal, tolerance, loss of control, loss of other interests, continued use despite problems, deception, escape, and jeopardy — and requires 5 of 9 over 12 months for a probable diagnosis. The IGDS9-SF is the most widely-used short instrument mapping directly to these criteria.

What the screen deliberately captures: the addiction-like pattern — preoccupation, mood modification, tolerance, loss of control, conflict, deception, escapism, and jeopardy. What it does not capture: hours of play, type of game, social or solitary play, whether the player enjoys gaming as a hobby. Gaming is not pathological. Problem gaming patterns are.

When this test is useful — and when it isn’t

Useful for:

  • A 2-minute self-check when you have been wondering whether your gaming is “too much”
  • A parent or partner who wants a structured number to discuss, rather than “you play too much”
  • Tracking change across months after a structural intervention (PC out of the bedroom, daily cap, circuit-breaker)
  • Bringing a number to a GP, school counsellor, or therapist visit

Less reliable when:

  • The play pattern has only existed for less than 3 months — the 12-month framing of DSM-5 / ICD-11 may not apply yet
  • Active acute crisis (severe depression, recent loss, ongoing trauma) is artificially elevating escape-seeking
  • Under age 12 — the scale is calibrated on adolescents and young adults; younger children need clinician-led assessment
  • The reader is filling it in for someone else — the inner experience of preoccupation and craving cannot be guessed accurately from outside

Hours of play is not the criterion

Most heavy gamers do not meet IGD criteria. Petry 2014 (Addiction) — the international consensus paper behind DSM-5 IGD — explicitly excluded hours of play from the diagnostic criteria. The 9 IGDS items ask about preoccupation, withdrawal, tolerance, loss of control, lost interests, conflict, deception, escape, and jeopardy. None of them are about minutes. Some of the highest-engagement competitive gamers, including professionals, score below 21. Some teenagers with only 1 hour a day score above 31 because that hour costs them sleep, school marks, and family meals.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP, 2016, reaffirmed) updated its child screen-time guidance away from a single “hours per day” number more than a decade ago. The current AAP framing is structural: no screens during meals, no screens in the hour before sleep, no screens in the bedroom, and active rather than passive use where possible. The WHO ICD-11 6C51 definition similarly requires functional impairment, not minutes.

What to do if your score is at-risk or higher

Three things matter more than willpower:

  1. Structural change first. Move the gaming PC or console out of the bedroom. Use the launcher-level daily cap built into Steam, Xbox, PlayStation, and most mobile platforms. Schedule one weekly gaming day off — predictable, repeating absence is more effective than unpredictable abstinence in King 2018 (Clinical Psychology Review meta-analysis).
  2. Replace, do not just remove. Have a competing activity ready (exercise, a hands-on hobby, an in-person social plan). Gaming cessation without replacement has a high relapse rate.
  3. Address co-occurring mood or sleep. IGD and depression co-occur frequently (Andreassen 2016, N=23,533). Treating depression often partially restores control over gaming. Take the PHQ-9 on this site if low mood is also present.

If you have lied to family about how much you play, or quietly skipped work or school to play, take those signals seriously — they are the criteria most predictive of progression to formal IGD.

If you are in crisis tonight

If gaming has become entangled with thoughts of self-harm or suicide — or if low mood feels overwhelming — you do not have to wait for an appointment. In the United States: 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline (call or text 988, 24/7). United Kingdom: Samaritans 116 123. International directory: findahelpline.com. Crisis lines are appropriate for emotional distress, not only for immediate danger.

Sources verified 2026-05-17

  • Pontes HM, Griffiths MD. Measuring DSM-5 internet gaming disorder: Development and validation of a short psychometric scale. Computers in Human Behavior 2015;45:137–143. (PMID 25839297)
  • Petry NM, Rehbein F, Gentile DA, et al. An international consensus for assessing internet gaming disorder using the new DSM-5 approach. Addiction 2014;109(9):1399–1406. (PMID 24456155)
  • American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR). Internet Gaming Disorder, Section III. 2022.
  • World Health Organization. ICD-11 — Gaming disorder (6C51). Effective in member states January 2022.
  • Király O, Sleczka P, Pontes HM, et al. Validation of the IGDT-10 and evaluation of the nine DSM-5 criteria. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking / Computers in Human Behavior 2017. (PMID 28528063)
  • American Academy of Pediatrics, Council on Communications and Media. Media Use in School-Aged Children and Adolescents. Pediatrics 2016;138(5):e20162592.

Privacy

The IGDS9-SF calculation runs entirely in your browser. Your individual answers and the calculated band never leave your device. We send one anonymous event to a privacy-respecting analytics service: your locale code and the band string (for example at_risk_31_36). No raw answers, no per-item data, no identifier of any kind.

Frequently asked questions

What does an IGDS9 score of 35 mean?
A score of 35 sits in the at-risk / probable IGD band (31–36). At this level you have endorsed roughly 5 or more of the 9 DSM-5 criteria at "often" or above — the DSM-5 cut-off for probable Internet Gaming Disorder (Petry 2014; Pontes 2015). About 1 to 3 in every 100 adolescents and young adults score here in Western surveys. It is not a diagnosis, but it is the band where most clinicians recommend a fuller conversation within 4 to 6 weeks.
What does an IGDS9 score of 25 mean?
A score of 25 sits in the moderate-concern band (21–30). Gaming is occupying meaningful mental space — preoccupation, mood-modification, some tolerance — but the more disruptive criteria (deceiving family, jeopardising a job or relationship, persistent failed cut-down attempts) are not strongly endorsed. This is the band where a single structural change (gaming PC out of the bedroom, daily launcher-level cap, fixed lights-out) usually moves the score back into the low band within 4 to 8 weeks.
What does an IGDS9 score of 40 mean?
A score of 40 sits in the highest band (37–45) — the likely IGD pattern. Most or all 9 DSM-5 criteria are present at a level that is interfering with work, school, sleep, or relationships. Gaming Disorder is a formal ICD-11 diagnosis (code 6C51, effective January 2022) and is treatable. The standard recommendation at this score is a GP or mental-health clinician visit this week, bringing the score and a 1-week play diary with you.
What is the cut-off for Internet Gaming Disorder on the IGDS9-SF?
There is no single universally agreed cut-off, but the DSM-5 itself requires 5 of 9 criteria endorsed for a probable diagnosis. On the 9–45 IGDS9-SF scale, this corresponds to roughly 31 or higher (Pontes 2015; Petry 2014). Below 21 is the non-problematic band; 21–30 is moderate concern; 31–36 is at-risk / probable IGD; 37–45 is the likely-disorder pattern. The numbers are research bands, not clinical cut-offs — a clinician integrates the score with history and functional impairment.
BSMAS vs IGDS9 — are these the same?
No. The BSMAS measures problematic social media use (Instagram, TikTok, Facebook). The IGDS9-SF measures problematic gaming (consoles, PC, mobile games). They use similar Likert formats and similar DSM-5-derived criteria, but the behaviours, populations, and effect sizes differ. Andreassen 2016 compared the two head-to-head and found the IGD criteria correlate more strongly with sleep loss, school/work impairment, and conflict than the social-media criteria. If you are unsure which to take, take both — they are independent.
Is my child addicted to gaming?
Most heavy-gaming children and teenagers do not meet IGD criteria. Hours of play, by themselves, do not equal disorder. The criteria are about functional impairment — sleep dropped below 6 hours, school marks falling, family fights about play, lying about play, gaming used to escape low mood that other activities no longer relieve. If those are present, share this screener with them (calibrated on adolescents and young adults) and bring the result to a paediatrician or family doctor. If the play is heavy but life is intact, the next step is structural (out of the bedroom, daily cap, screen-free meals), not clinical.
Is gaming bad for kids — what is the AAP guidance?
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP, 2016, reaffirmed) explicitly stopped recommending a single "hours per day" limit for school-aged children. The 2016 guidance is structural instead: no screens during meals, no screens in the hour before sleep, no screens in the bedroom, and active rather than passive use where possible. Gaming itself is not flagged as harmful — the WHO ICD-11 6C51 definition specifically requires functional impairment, not minutes. The hours-equals-harm framing is older guidance that the AAP updated more than a decade ago.
How healthy is X hours of gaming per day?
There is no single safe number. The clinical question (ICD-11 6C51, DSM-5-TR) is whether gaming is crowding out work, school, sleep, in-person relationships, or other activities the person previously valued. Many adult gamers play 10+ hours a week without it being clinically meaningful. Many young people with 1 hour a day meet IGD criteria because the hour is at the cost of sleep, study, or family meals. Use the IGDS9-SF, not a stopwatch.
When does gaming become an addiction?
ICD-11 Gaming Disorder (6C51) requires the pattern to be present for 12 months, to be persistent and recurrent, and to impair personal, family, social, educational, or occupational functioning. DSM-5-TR Internet Gaming Disorder requires 5 of 9 criteria over 12 months. The shift from "lots of gaming" to "gaming disorder" is the impairment criterion — losing sleep, missing school or work, deceiving family, jeopardising a relationship or career. A high IGDS9-SF score in someone whose life is otherwise intact is unusual; if it happens, the score usually drops on retest 4 to 8 weeks later.
I play 6 hours on weekends but my life is fine — should I worry?
Probably not. Heavy weekend play with intact weekday function, sleep, and relationships does not meet IGD criteria. The IGDS9-SF is built precisely to separate this pattern from problematic gaming — the criteria ask about preoccupation, withdrawal, tolerance, loss of control, loss of interests, conflict, deception, escape, and jeopardy. None of these are about minutes per session. If your score on this screen is under 21, the pattern is non-problematic regardless of hours.
Is gaming disorder real — what is the WHO classification?
Yes. Gaming Disorder was added to ICD-11 (code 6C51) by the World Health Organization in 2018 and became effective in member states in January 2022. It is a formal clinical diagnosis under "Disorders due to addictive behaviours". DSM-5-TR (American Psychiatric Association, 2022) lists Internet Gaming Disorder in Section III as a condition for further study — recognised but not yet a full DSM diagnosis. The IGDS9-SF used here maps directly to the DSM-5 criteria (Pontes 2015) and was validated against ICD-11 in later studies (Király 2017).
How is IGDS9-SF different from the longer IGD-20?
The IGD-20 was Pontes & Griffiths first instrument (2014, 20 items, six subscales). The IGDS9-SF is the short form they published in 2015 — one item per DSM-5 criterion, faster to administer, validated in multiple countries since. The 9-item version is the one most widely used in research today. For clinical follow-up, longer instruments (IGD-20, IGDT-10, AICA-Sgaming for German-speaking countries) add diagnostic depth but the IGDS9-SF is the standard first-line screen.
Can I retake this test in a few weeks to track change?
Yes, but the IGDS9-SF asks about the last 12 months — week-to-week change is not what the scale measures. Retake every 8 to 12 weeks if you are tracking after an intervention (out of the bedroom, daily cap, circuit-breaker break). A drop of one full band is a meaningful change. Below 8 weeks, you mostly capture noise, not real shift.
I lied about how much I play — what does that mean?
Lying about play is the deception criterion (IGDS9-SF item 7) and is one of the strongest predictors of progression to formal IGD (Petry 2014 consensus). It is also the criterion most likely to feel shameful. Breaking the silence with one trusted person — partner, parent, close friend — is usually the first real step toward change. Bring this score to that conversation if it helps; a number is easier to discuss than the behaviour itself.
Does my data leave my device?
No. The IGDS9-SF calculation runs entirely in your browser. Your individual answers and the calculated band never leave your device. We send one anonymous event with the band string (e.g. "at_risk_31_36") — no raw answers, no IP, no identifier.

Sources

  1. Measuring DSM-5 internet gaming disorder: Development and validation of a short psychometric scale — Pontes HM, Griffiths MD — Computers in Human Behavior (2015) (peer reviewed, retrieved 2026-05-17)
  2. An international consensus for assessing internet gaming disorder using the new DSM-5 approach — Petry NM, Rehbein F, Gentile DA, et al. — Addiction (2014) (peer reviewed, retrieved 2026-05-17)
  3. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, Text Revision (DSM-5-TR) — Internet Gaming Disorder (Section III, Conditions for Further Study) — American Psychiatric Association (2022) (guideline, retrieved 2026-05-17)
  4. ICD-11 — Gaming disorder (6C51) — World Health Organization — International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (effective January 2022) (guideline, retrieved 2026-05-17)
  5. Validation of the ten-item Internet Gaming Disorder Test (IGDT-10) and evaluation of the nine DSM-5 criteria in an online sample of frequent gamers — Király O, Sleczka P, Pontes HM, Urbán R, Griffiths MD, Demetrovics Z — Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking / Computers in Human Behavior (2017) (peer reviewed, retrieved 2026-05-17)
  6. AAP Council on Communications and Media — Media Use in School-Aged Children and Adolescents — American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP, 2016, reaffirmed) (guideline, retrieved 2026-05-17)