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Teenagers who spend a lot of time on social media complain about feeling like they can’t pay attention to more important things like homework or spending time with loved ones.
A new study may have captured this objectively, revealing that in adolescents diagnosed with Internet addiction, signaling between brain regions important for attention control, working memory and more was disturbed.
The results come from a review, published Tuesday in the journal PLOS Mental Health, of 12 neuroimaging studies involving a few hundred adolescents aged 10 to 19 between 2013 and 2022.
“Behavioral addiction caused by excessive Internet use has become a growing concern over the past decade,” the authors write in the study.
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Excessive internet use can distract a teen from responsibilities and other activities they enjoy, experts say.
The clinical diagnostic criteria for Internet addiction in the included studies were “persistent preoccupation with the Internet, withdrawal symptoms when moving away from the Internet, and sacrifice of relationships (for) time to spend on the Internet on an extended period of time (e.g., 12 months),” Max Chang, first author of the study and outreach case manager at the nonprofit Peninsula Family Service in San Francisco, said by email. “The pattern of behavior results in significant impairment or distress in the individual’s life. »
Given how adolescent brains evolve compared to adult brains, the authors felt it was critical to understand the impacts of Internet addiction on the participating adolescent brains.
When participants clinically diagnosed with Internet addiction engaged in activities governed by the brain’s executive functions network—behaviors requiring attention, planning, decision-making, and impulse control—these regions brains showed substantial disruption in their ability to work together, compared to their peers without Internet addiction. The authors believe such changes in signaling could suggest that these behaviors may become more difficult to perform, potentially influencing development and well-being.
“While this article presents a simple systematic review suggesting that there are associations between functional connectivity in the brain and Internet “addiction”, there are a number of fundamental limitations to be aware of and which are essential to any interpretation,” Dr David Ellis, a behavioral scientist at the Institute for Digital Safety and Behavior at the University of Bath, said in a press release.
“Cause and effect cannot be drawn from these studies,” said Ellis, who was not involved in the study. “Second, the focus on functional connectivity comes at the expense of any criticism regarding the key measure of interest. Specifically, Internet “addiction,” initially mentioned by (psychiatrist) Ivan K. Goldberg in 1995 as a joke.
“Today, the conceptualization and measurement of Internet “addiction” is neither universally accepted and certainly impossible to diagnose using the survey instruments used in the studies included in the analysis,” added Ellis. “Similarly, the enormity of the activities enabled by the Internet immediately makes this definition somewhat redundant.”
In the United States, Internet addiction is not included in the DSM-V – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental health professionals in the United States. It does, however, list Internet gaming disorders. All of the studies reviewed by the authors were all conducted in Asia and primarily involved male participants. China was the first country to declare internet addiction a “public health crisis.”
“Such definitions, while widely criticized, also tend to distract from the real harms online and conclude that removing technology from people’s lives will help,” Ellis said. “There is no strong evidence to suggest that removing the internet provides any tangible benefits. »
Additionally, all of the studies were conducted at one point in time, said Dr. Eva Telzer, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was not involved in the study.
“Given that there is no longitudinal data,” Telzer said, “it is very possible that adolescents who have underlying differences in brain connectivity patterns are more vulnerable to developing drug addiction. Internet”.
If internet addiction is to blame for the disruption in participants’ brain signaling, the reason could be related to addiction-related neural pathways, said Dr. Smita Das, an addiction psychiatrist and clinical associate professor of psychiatry. and behavioral sciences at Stanford Medicine. California. Das was not involved in the study.
The functional connectivity patterns in the participants’ brains are, in fact, consistent with those seen in people with drug addiction, said Dr. Caglar Yildirim, an associate professor of computer science at the Khoury College of Computer Sciences at Northeastern University in Boston. Yildirim did not participate in the study.
“Overall, the mechanisms underlying Internet addiction look more like an emerging model than a finished picture,” Chang said. “Many causal links between what happens in the brain and what manifests through behavior remain to be understood. Currently, observation using biomarkers such as functional connectivity helps fill this gap.
If you’re wondering if your teen has an Internet addiction, behaviors such as withdrawing from a relationship are a telltale sign, Chang said.
“Similar to substance abuse and gaming disorders, Internet addiction rewires the brain, making it more difficult to resist Internet-related stimuli,” he added. “However, unlike gambling or substance use, the Internet plays an important role in our lives. Balancing the usefulness and dangers of the Internet is a crucial area for adolescent development.
Find out what’s stopping your teen from going online and help them do more of it, Yildirim suggested.
You can also talk with your child’s doctor to see if behavioral strategies can work, Das suggested. Therapies such as cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness, and motivational interviewing are helpful. The latter, from the field of addiction treatment, is a counseling method that aims to increase the patient’s motivation and commitment to behavior change by eliciting and exploring their own reasons for wanting to change. .
In severe cases, a psychiatrist may suggest medications to treat certain types of technology addiction, she added.
LEARN MORE: How to Know If You Have a Phone Addiction and 12 Ways to Fix It
“In addition to treating internet addiction, there may be other underlying mental health issues that also need attention,” Das said. “Finally, some of the preventative measures we recommended include limiting screen time, taking breaks, and avoiding doom scrolling.”
Technology addictions have become prevalent enough that the American Psychiatric Association included it as a topic in its 2023 to 2024 presidential initiative, said Das, outgoing chair of the APA’s council on addictions.
“Because we know families are desperate for help and confused about the science,” Das said, “we have developed several resources, many of which can be found on the APA website.”