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Internet Dependency: Symptoms, Diagnosis and Therapy

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Virtual Worlds and Criminality

Abstract

The question of whether people can become dependent on media in a pathological sense has come to the fore with the development of the internet and its derivatives. Apart from the fact that the mental development of an individual living in a civilisation necessarily takes place in dependency on its media and their mediation functions, there is increasing evidence that the realms of the media in cyberspace are taking on dynamics of their own to which people are becoming enslaved in the sense of an addiction. The convergence of all precursor analogue media in the digital world and the novel interactivity with which it is capable of connecting all contents and people may explain why using the internet can lead to dependency in a clinically relevant sense.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Hannover Medical School, Centre for Psychological Medicine, Hannover, Germany

    Bert Theodor teWildt

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  1. Bert Theodor teWildt
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Correspondence to Bert Theodor teWildt .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Heidelberg, Faculty of Law, Institute for German European and Intern, Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 6-10, Heidelberg, 69117, Germany

    Kai Cornelius

  2. Juristische Fakultät, Inst. Kriminologie, Universität Heidelberg, Friedrich-Ebert-Anlage 6-10, Heidelberg, 69117, Germany

    Dieter Hermann

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teWildt, B.T. (2011). Internet Dependency: Symptoms, Diagnosis and Therapy. In: Cornelius, K., Hermann, D. (eds) Virtual Worlds and Criminality. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-20823-2_5

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