doi: 10.22720/HNMR.2017.1.1.003 Citation BibTeX RIS Mendeley

Effects of a Personalized Anti-Drinking Mobile Game on College Students' responses to Binge Drinking: Mediating Roles of Self-Referencing Effects and Flow

• Joonghwa Lee (Department of Communication Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte)

This study suggests that a personalized anti-drinking mobile game can be effective in addressing college students’ binge drinking perceptions, as it can generate higher levels of self-referencing effect and flow. This study conducted a post-test only experiment with the personalized mobile game condition by using a participant’s selfie and name and the control condition by using a default game character. This study found that (1) the personalized mobile game generated a higher level of self-referencing effect than the default mobile game; (2) the self-referencing mediated the positive effect of the personalized mobile game on attitudes toward the game and the negative effect of it on attitudes toward binge drinking; and (3) the personalized mobile game generated higher levels of self-referencing effect and flow than the default mobile game, which in turn resulted in more positive attitudes toward the game. The implications of these results are discussed.