internet addiction scale

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Internet Addiction: A Critical Discussion



Research on Internet Addiction
Kimberley Young, on the other hand, seems perfectly happy with the term and has lobbied the APA unsuccessfully to include IAD in the next edition of the DSM. Young conducted research into the area of Internet Addiction and created an online questionnaire in 1994 which Internet users could take, based on "the same criteria used to diagnose compulsive gambling and alcoholism."4 She received an overwhelming response from people who felt that their Internet usage was out of control. Young then expanded her survey to collect more specific data and used the results as the basis for her research paper "Internet Addiction: The Emergence of a New Clinical Disorder" which was presented at a 1996 APA convention in Toronto. The media soon picked up on her research and news stories appeared in mainstream media as well as computer related publications. Young has written a book, Caught in the Net, in which she explains "how to recognize the signs of Internet addiction -- and [offers] a winning strategy for recovery."5 The Centre for Online Addiction (COLA) was created by Young to act as a resource for those seeking counselling and resources related to IAD.

Viktor Brenner "has also examined excessive Internet usage among a self-selected sample of the general population"6 through an online questionnaire called the Internet-Related Addictive Behavior Inventory (IRABI). He interpreted his results to show evidence of craving, tolerance and withdrawal, however Griffiths suggests that "it is hard to assess whether any of Brenner's respondents are really addicted to the Internet, as his scale items do not really relate to addiction."8 In addition, Brenner's data might be considered misleading because "there appeared to be an over-representation of researchers and reporters interested in this topic that also answered the survey question"9 and a large percentage of those surveyed had been using the Internet for 24 months or less. This suggests that many of the users surveyed could have been newcomers who were particularly involved in Internet usage at the time rather than presenting behaviour analogous with that of addiction (as defined by the DSM).

Other surveys have been conducted in a similar manner, notably those by Thompson (1996) and Egger (1996). Each of these required the user to self-select or self-identify as addicted to the Internet and asked a series of questions about internet usage. Some researchers, like Scherer and Bost (1997), chose to focus exclusively on students using "a checklist of 10 clinical symptoms to parallel the symptoms of substance abuse and dependency."10 While the questions for each survey differed slightly, the results were similar. There definitely exists a group of people who have difficulty controlling how much time they spend online. This behaviour has a negative impact on the rest of their lives and often angers or upsets their family, friends and significant others.