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The Internet addiction or Internet addiction disorder (IAD) can have detrimental outcomes for young people that may require professional interventions. Nowadays researchers have identified a number of personality traits and mushrooming disorders associated with Internet addiction. This article discusses the empirical support of various authors that recognized the relevant external as well as internal factors considered to be the leading causes and consequences of this fatal addiction. It discusses number of relevant studies that are consistent with the fact of escalating neurotic/psychological problems associated with this disorder. The panoramic view of this pathological gambling can offer a wider perspective towards this problem as well as help with the much-needed intervention.
Keywords: internet addiction, adolescents, addictions, psychological, neurotic
Internet addiction disorder: Internet addiction is described as an impulse control disorder which does not involve use of an intoxicating drug but is very similar to pathological gambling. A parallel unofficial disorder would be "workholism" and parallel official DSM-IV diagnosis would be "Pathological Gambling" (Young, 1996).Internet addiction disorder also commonly known as problematic Internet use (PIU) or compulsive Internet use (CIU). IAD is often divided into various subtypes by activity, such as excessive, overwhelming, or inappropriate Internet pornography use, gaming, online social networking, blogging, email, or Internet shopping (shopping addiction) to a serious extend of interfering as well as hampering the daily life (Turel & Serenko, 2010).
Internet addiction is a subset of a broader disorder "technology addiction". A study published in the Journal Cyber psychology, Behavior, and Social Networking suggests that prevalence of Internet addiction varies considerably between countries and is inversely related to quality of life (Cheng & Yee-lam, 2014). The vulnerability of college students/adolescents to internet addiction is characterized by: (1) an increasing investment of resources on Internet-related activities; (2) unpleasant feelings when off-line, including anxiety, depression and emptiness. The prevalence of Internet addiction in adolescents estimates vary widely across countries. Using Young's Internet Addiction Test ( 1999) it was found out that 1.5% of Greek (Kormas, Critselis, Janikian, Kafetzis, & Tsitsika, 2011) and 1.6% of Finnish adolescents (Kaltiala-Heino, Lintonen, & Rimpela, 2004) were found to be addicted to usage of the Internet. Using a modified version of the Minnesota Impulsive Disorders Inventory it was found out that 4% of US high school were...