Internet Addiction in Context

Abstract

Internet addiction can be defined as the overuse of the internet such that it leads to the impairment of an individual's psychological state (both mental and emotional), as well as their scholastic, occupational, and social interactions. In this chapter, the authors first present a short historical overview of the internet addiction phenomenon and its place in the context of mental health. They then introduce the contributions of major researchers who focused on defining its core components, designing measurement scales and diagnostic criteria. Furthermore, they focus on the main areas of research in this field: the major surveys regarding prevalence rates and the correlates of internet addiction. In the last section, they introduce basic approaches to the treatment of internet addiction.