Virtual World Addiction and Problematic Consumption: Public Policy Implications for the New Marketing Landscape

摘要

Negative, or problematic, consumer behavior - or what Hirschman calls "...consumption gone wrong" (Hirschman, 1991: 4) - has been studied from a number of viewpoints including destructive brand pathology (Fournier and Alvarez, 2013), compulsive and impulsive consumption and addiction (O'Guinn and Faber, 1989; Hirschman, 1992; Nataraajan and Goff, 1991), and consumer dependencies (Mick and Fournier, 1998) such as pathological gambling, credit abuse, kleptomania, smoking, drug taking, alcohol, excessive eating - where consumption can result in pathological and damaging outcomes for consumers such as low self-esteem, withdrawal and depression (Moschis, 2007). In the present study we extend this line of enquiry by focusing on a novel context: consumer addiction to virtual worlds. In addition, we examine the associated pathological consequences of excessive usage, reported levels of problematic spending and the of virtual worlds that might encourage excessive usage (examined through cognitive absorption).