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Saturday, March 11, 2017

Technology addiction - how should it be treated? cont

Why a standalone diagnosis of 'Internet addiction' may be unhelpful

In November 2012, a study into Internet addiction among European youths from researchers at the London School of Economics (LSE) in the UK proposed a different take on the concept of "Internet addiction." Rather than view problems related to Internet use as "addiction," the researchers employed the term "excessive use" to describe patterns of "repetitive, compulsive and uncontrolled" use.
The authors reasoned that where Internet use is blamed for declining school results in children or increased family tension, "it is not at all clear whether excessive Internet use is the cause of these problems - it could be a symptom or a consequence of these or other underlying troubles."
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LSE researchers suggest that a specific "addiction" to the Internet is less prevalent than is generally feared.
The LSE team applied the five basic components of Internet addiction, as defined by the British psychologist Dr. Mark Griffiths, to the participants in their study. They asked the children how often they experienced the following:
  1. '"I have gone without eating or sleeping because of the Internet"
  2. "I have felt bothered when I cannot be on the Internet"
  3. "I have caught myself surfing when I am not really interested"
  4. "I have spent less time than I should with either family, friends or doing schoolwork because of the time I spent on the Internet"
  5. "I have tried unsuccessfully to spend less time on the Internet."
They found that very few participants experienced all five components, which suggested to the researchers that a specific "addiction" to the Internet is less prevalent than is generally feared.
However, the researchers did find a relationship between excessive Internet use and problematic online and offline behavior. These include psychological and emotional difficulties, drinking alcohol and substance abuse.
The LSE researchers argue that rather than pinning an "addict" label to children who use the Internet excessively, children's engagement with technology should be understood within the wider context of their everyday life.
They write:
"Psychological approaches suggest that people use the Internet excessively to compensate for social or psychological difficulties, and deficits in personal well-being in terms of their everyday offline life. Studies have linked sensation-seeking (a tendency to pursue excitement and sensory pleasure), loneliness and emotional problems (such as depression and low self-confidence) to excessive Internet use."
Therefore, children who are psychologically vulnerable are more likely to engage in excessive Internet use because they are trying to compensate for problems in their offline lives. This is relevant to how psychologists or counsellors approach treatment, because "the child may not see their Internet use as a problem but as a positive, coping response to other social, emotional and psychological challenges in the child's life."
We put this to Dr. Wang, who broadly agreed with the LSE's findings. He told us:
"I am generally not in favor of a standalone 'Internet addiction' diagnosis, and I agree that it is more a symptom of a larger problem - anxiety, depression, boredom, self-esteem issues to name a few - than an illness itself. Making it a DSM diagnosis 'medicalizes' the problem."
"However," he adds, "there are individuals with addictive personalities who may be more vulnerable to developing such an addiction. It's a combination of factors - an addictive personality plus a trigger (e.g., anxiety or depression) snowballing to full-blown addiction symptoms."
Although we are now nearing a 20th anniversary of Dr. Goldberg's Internet addiction disorder hoax, it seems that clinicians are still largely divided on the validity of such a disorder, and, if it does exist, what the best way of approaching it might be.
But it is not without some irony we note that, at the time of writing, a temporary Facebook outage lasting just 20 minutes has plunged users of social media into turmoil, with broadsheet newspapers going as far as to live-blog the downtime.
"If anything," writes the technology website Ubergizmo, "this incident only highlights our 

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Although we are now nearing a 20th anniversary of Dr. Goldberg's Internet addiction disorder hoax, it seems that clinicians are still largely divided on the validity of such a disorder, and, if it does exist, what the best way of approaching it might be.
But it is not without some irony we note that, at the time of writing, a temporary Facebook outage lasting just 20 minutes has plunged users of social media into turmoil, with broadsheet newspapers going as far as to live-blog the downtime.
"If anything," writes the technology website Ubergizmo, "this incident only highlights our addiction to the social network."
Medical News Today recently reported on a study that suggested cell phone addiction is becoming an increasing concern in high school and college studentsaddiction to the social network."


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