Learning to deal with Problematic Usage of the Internet

Abstract

Introduction. Since its development in the early 1990’s, the Internet has become highly pervasive across most of the civilized world. While the majority of Internet users take advantage of its many positive uses (including professionaland recreational ones), some individuals can develop Problematic Use of the Internet (which we will refer to as PUI). This term encompasses a wide range of repetitive disabling behaviors characterized by compulsivity and addiction. These include, but are not limited to, Internet gaming, compulsive online sexual behaviors/cyberpornography, Internetrelated buying or shopping disorder, Internet-related gambling disorder, cyberbullying, cyberchondria, and social media/network forum use, among others. Although PUI affects a minority of individuals who routinely use the Internet, several reports have documented a series of unhealthy lifestyles and medical disturbances that are thought to represent the consequences of severe forms of PUI, and that are of special concern in relation to children and young people. People affected by PUI and their family members often do not know about the signs and symptoms of these conditions. For example, they do not know how to recognize PUI, or whom to go to for help, and often they do not know whether this is a treatable condition and/or how to manage it. Because of this, national health authorities around the world are concerned about the health and societal costs that PUI may entail. Some authorities are starting to recognize particular forms of PUI as serious and disabling manifestations of behavioral addiction.. [...].