Dan Loton, a Psychology graduate from Victoria University, conducted an honours research project to find out if video game addiction was related to social skills and self-esteem.

"From a clinical point of view, an addiction is a mental illness with very serious consequences," he said.

"In this context, we need to ask whether gaming is responsible for causing people’s lives to fall apart in the same way we see with gambling, alcohol or drug addiction."

Mr Loton's study found that only 1 per cent of game addicts suffered from shyness and there was no direct connection between problem game-playing and social skills or self-esteem.

Mr Loton conducted a survey of gamers using two psychological scales, the Problem Video Game Playing scale (PVP) and Social Skills Inventory (SSI), to measure how addicted respondents were and how they operated socially.

Of the 621 respondents, around 15 per cent were identified as problem gamers who spent over 50 hours a week playing games. Within this group, there was no clear link between problem gaming and poor social skills or low self-esteem.

However, the study showed MMORPG players were more likely to suffer problems with addiction.

"We found that those who played MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft, which currently has over 10 million fee-paying monthly subscribers, were more likely to exhibit problematic game play," he said.

"But, what is important to note is that even problem gamers did not exhibit significant signs of poor social skills or low self-esteem. Only one percent of those identified as problem gamers appeared to have poor social skills, specifically shyness."