School Counselors’ Experiences with Student Vaping and Internet Gaming: a Report from the Field

Addictive behaviors often begin in adolescence and can involve substances or rewarding behaviors. One prominent substance-based addictive behavior among adolescents is vaping, while internet gaming represents a prominent behavioral addiction among this age group. Despite the fact that vaping and gaming initiation often occurs when youth are in school, research is limited with regard to school counselors’ experience addressing these two potentially addictive behaviors. Thus, we analyzed data from 221 high school counselors and found 81% reported working with a student with a gaming issue in the previous year. Similarly, 81.4% reported working with a student with a vaping-related issue in the previous year. The majority of participants (70.1%) reported that gaming issues have increased during the COVID-19 pandemic. Although prevalent, roughly half of school counselors (50.7%) categorized internet gaming as a mild concern compared to other issues. Alternatively, 42.5% of participants said vaping was a moderate concern, on par with other issues, and 14.5% said vaping was a major concern, more than other issues. Among the school counselors in our study, 24.4% reported feeling moderately or very competent addressing student issues related to gaming and 33.5% reported feeling moderately or very competent addressing student issues related to vaping. Implications for school counselors are discussed.