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Problematic Internet Use

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Textbook of Addiction Treatment

Abstract

The Internet has arguably revolutionized our lives in a completely unprecedented way. Despite its countless benefits, threats such as problematic Internet use (PIU) (or Internet addiction) have also emerged. This chapter gives a brief overview of the main research questions, topics, and controversies of the field of problematic Internet use. More specifically, it discusses the concept of Internet addiction and its major criticisms, the development process of diagnostic criteria for gaming disorder (GD) as a specific Internet-use-related disorder, the etiology and theoretical models of general and specific problematic Internet use, the assessment and prevalence estimates of problematic Internet use and gaming disorder, and the main treatment approaches. This chapter closes with conclusions and suggestions for future research directions.

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Acknowledgments

This chapter was supported by the János Bolyai Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and by the Hungarian National Research, Development and Innovation Office (Grant nos. KKP126835, NKFIH-1157-8/2019-DT). Orsolya Király was supported by the ÚNKP-19-4 New National Excellence Program of the Ministry for Innovation and Technology.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Psychology, ELTE Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary

    Orsolya Király & Zsolt Demetrovics

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  1. Orsolya Király
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  2. Zsolt Demetrovics
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Correspondence to Zsolt Demetrovics .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Addiction Department of Psychiatry, University of Calgary, Calgary, AB, Canada

    Nady el-Guebaly

  2. Mental Health Department, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Monza e Brianza, Italy

    Giuseppe Carrà

  3. Division of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Department of Psychiatry, NYU School of Medicine, New York, NY, USA

    Marc Galanter

  4. Population and Behavioural Science Division (Psychiatry and Addictions), University of St Andrews, St.Andrews, UK

    Alexander M. Baldacchino

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Király, O., Demetrovics, Z. (2021). Problematic Internet Use. In: el-Guebaly, N., Carrà, G., Galanter, M., Baldacchino, A.M. (eds) Textbook of Addiction Treatment. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36391-8_67

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-36391-8_67

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