The link to the study is broken. The article says that this was just a review of 12 previous studies and that fMRI showed a "decrease in the functional connectivity in parts of the brain involved in active thinking" in teens who had been diagnosed with internet addiction, but is that caused by internet addiction or are people who already have fewer connections to those parts of the brain more likely to exhibit behaviors that meet whatever the criteria for a diagnosis of internet addiction even is.
When was internet addiction even recognized as an actual disorder? It really wouldn't surprise me if people who have executive function issues end up being easily distracted by the devices designed to do exactly that.
Pretty much what I thought: "the studies did not provide clear evidence that IA played a causal role towards the development of the adolescent brain."
There were a ton of other limitations too ("Components of the study, such as sample sizes, effect sizes, and demographics were not weighted or controlled", all the studies coming from "China (8), Korea (3), and Indonesia (1)" which might explain how a bunch of kids got diagnosed with a condition that isn't really recognized as a disorder in the west, inconsistent terminology ("online gaming addiction, internet addiction, internet gaming disorder, and problematic internet use") without clear consensus on what those terms actually mean, etc
Limiting cell phone/social media use is probably a good idea, especially for teens, but I sure wouldn't say that anyone should panic or change their behavior based on this paper.
The article (and presumably the study behind the article) expands on this a bit, it just wouldn't make a click-friendly title. According to the text, Internet addiction makes young people prone to fall for other kinds of addiction and negatively affects mental health, physical coordination, intellect, memory, sleep patterns and eating, ie. all the things you don't want broken.
Only if your revenue comes from ads or a pay per play style product. There exist many services that can retain users without them needing to log in every five seconds to maintain the revenue stream.
It says something for how explosively popular social media is that an article like this can just refer to it as "the internet" and nobody questions it in a tech forum.
I am so tired of 'x rewires the brain' type stories. Yes it does. EVERYTHING changes the brain, the brain is constantly changing in response to stimuli - that's how brains work.
Readit News
When was internet addiction even recognized as an actual disorder? It really wouldn't surprise me if people who have executive function issues end up being easily distracted by the devices designed to do exactly that.
Correct link appears to be https://journals.plos.org/mentalhealth/article?id=10.1371/jo...
There were a ton of other limitations too ("Components of the study, such as sample sizes, effect sizes, and demographics were not weighted or controlled", all the studies coming from "China (8), Korea (3), and Indonesia (1)" which might explain how a bunch of kids got diagnosed with a condition that isn't really recognized as a disorder in the west, inconsistent terminology ("online gaming addiction, internet addiction, internet gaming disorder, and problematic internet use") without clear consensus on what those terms actually mean, etc
Limiting cell phone/social media use is probably a good idea, especially for teens, but I sure wouldn't say that anyone should panic or change their behavior based on this paper.
Internet addiction is a dirty word for "user retention."
“Alters” ok? Working out “alters” my muscles.
The real question is if it is bad. And importantly. Do we consider it bad because it’s different than how we are or is it actually bad.
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