Internet addiction assessment tools: dimensional structure and methodological status.

AIMS Excessive internet use is becoming a concern, and some have proposed that it may involve addiction. We evaluated the dimensions assessed by, and psychometric properties of, a range of questionnaires purporting to assess internet addiction. METHODS Fourteen questionnaires were identified purporting to assess internet addiction among adolescents and adults published between January 1993 and October 2011. Their reported dimensional structure, construct, discriminant and convergent validity and reliability were assessed, as well as the methods used to derive these. RESULTS Methods used to evaluate internet addiction questionnaires varied considerably. Three dimensions of addiction predominated: compulsive use (79%), negative outcomes (86%) and salience (71%). Less common were escapism (21%), withdrawal symptoms (36%) and other dimensions. Measures of validity and reliability were found to be within normally acceptable limits. CONCLUSIONS There is a broad convergence of questionnaires purporting to assess internet addiction suggesting that compulsive use, negative outcome and salience should be covered and the questionnaires show adequate psychometric properties. However, the methods used to evaluate the questionnaires vary widely and possible factors contributing to excessive use such as social motivation do not appear to be covered.

[1]  Mary McMurran,et al.  The Psychometric Properties of the Internet Addiction Test , 2004, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[2]  Louis Leung,et al.  Shyness and Locus of Control as Predictors of Internet Addiction and Internet Use , 2004, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[3]  B. Druss,et al.  Can psychiatry cross the quality chasm? Improving the quality of health care for mental and substance use conditions. , 2007, The American journal of psychiatry.

[4]  Matthieu J. Guitton.  The immersive impact of meta-media in a virtual world , 2012, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[5]  D. Gentile.  Pathological Video-Game Use Among Youth Ages 8 to 18 , 2009, Psychological science.

[6]  P. Renshaw,et al.  Bupropion sustained release treatment decreases craving for video games and cue-induced brain activity in patients with internet video game addiction , 2011 .

[7]  Scott E. Caplan.  Relations Among Loneliness, Social Anxiety, and Problematic Internet Use , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[8]  Daniel L. King,et al.  Preliminary Validation of a New Clinical Tool for Identifying Problem Video Game Playing , 2011, International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction.

[9]  Mikhail J. Atallah,et al.  Internet addiction: Meta-synthesis of qualitative research for the decade 1996-2006 , 2008, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[10]  Man Kit Chang,et al.  Factor structure for Young's Internet Addiction Test: A confirmatory study , 2008, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[11]  G. Dong,et al.  Enhanced reward sensitivity and decreased loss sensitivity in Internet addicts: an fMRI study during a guessing task. , 2011, Journal of psychiatric research.

[12]  P. Mitchell.  Internet addiction: genuine diagnosis or not? , 2000, The Lancet.

[13]  James G. Phillips,et al.  Potential determinants of heavier internet usage , 2000, Int. J. Hum. Comput. Stud..

[14]  John P. Charlton,et al.  Distinguishing addiction and high engagement in the context of online game playing , 2007, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[15]  M. Griffiths.  Internet addiction: Does it really exist? , 1998 .

[16]  Phyllis Schumacher,et al.  Loneliness and social uses of the Internet , 2003, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[17]  Zheng Huang,et al.  Chinese Internet Addiction Inventory: Developing a Measure of Problematic Internet Use for Chinese College Students , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[18]  Sang Hee Kim,et al.  Reduced striatal dopamine D2 receptors in people with Internet addiction , 2011, Neuroreport.

[19]  Yong Sik Lee,et al.  Changes in Cue-Induced, Prefrontal Cortex Activity with Video-Game Play , 2010, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[20]  E. Ceyhan,et al.  The Validity and Reliability of the Problematic Internet Usage Scale , 2007 .

[21]  Ronnie Jia,et al.  Factorial validity of problematic Internet use scales , 2009, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[22]  S. Grüsser,et al.  Specific cue reactivity on computer game-related cues in excessive gamers. , 2007, Behavioral neuroscience.

[23]  A. Thatcher,et al.  Development and Psychometric Properties of the Problematic Internet use Questionnaire , 2005 .

[24]  Yan Zhou,et al.  Gray matter abnormalities in Internet addiction: a voxel-based morphometry study. , 2011, European journal of radiology.

[25]  Scott E. Caplan.  Theory and measurement of generalized problematic Internet use: A two-step approach , 2010, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[26]  Nick Yee,et al.  Motivations for Play in Online Games , 2006, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[27]  Tae Hyon Ha,et al.  Abnormal brain activation of adolescent internet addict in a ball-throwing animation task: Possible neural correlates of disembodiment revealed by fMRI , 2012, Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry.

[28]  Richard A. Davis,et al.  Validation of a New Scale for Measuring Problematic Internet Use: Implications for Pre-employment Screening , 2002, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[29]  Karen H. Frith,et al.  The Development and Initial Testing of the Internet Consequences Scales (ICONS) , 2005, Computers, informatics, nursing : CIN.

[30]  Keith W. Beard,et al.  Modification in the Proposed Diagnostic Criteria for Internet Addiction , 2001, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[31]  Regina J. J. M. van den Eijnden,et al.  The Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS): Some Psychometric Properties , 2009, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[32]  Scott E. Caplan.  Problematic Internet use and psychosocial well-being: development of a theory-based cognitive-behavioral measurement instrument , 2002, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[33]  Mark D. Griffiths,et al.  Excessive Computer Game Playing: Evidence for Addiction and Aggression? , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[34]  Kimberly Young,et al.  Internet Addiction: The Emergence of a New Clinical Disorder , 1998, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[35]  Thomas W. Frazier,et al.  Historical increase in the number of factors measured by commercial tests of cognitive ability: Are we overfactoring? , 2007 .

[36]  Jerald J. Block.  Issues for DSM-V: internet addiction. , 2008, The American journal of psychiatry.

[37]  C. Ko,et al.  Brain activities associated with gaming urge of online gaming addiction. , 2009, Journal of psychiatric research.

[38]  C. Ko,et al.  Gender Differences and Related Factors Affecting Online Gaming Addiction Among Taiwanese Adolescents , 2005, The Journal of nervous and mental disease.

[39]  Jeroen S. Lemmens,et al.  Development and Validation of a Game Addiction Scale for Adolescents , 2008 .

[40]  Q. Lu,et al.  Impulse inhibition in people with Internet addiction disorder: Electrophysiological evidence from a Go/NoGo study , 2010, Neuroscience Letters.

[41]  M. Davies,et al.  Online computer gaming: a comparison of adolescent and adult gamers. , 2004, Journal of adolescence.

[42]  H. Lei,et al.  Abnormal White Matter Integrity in Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder: A Tract-Based Spatial Statistics Study , 2012, PloS one.

[43]  Katherine E. Buckley,et al.  Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy , 2007 .

[44]  Cliff Lampe,et al.  The Benefits of Facebook "Friends: " Social Capital and College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites , 2007, J. Comput. Mediat. Commun..

[45]  Ricardo A Tejeiro Salguero,et al.  Measuring problem video game playing in adolescents. , 2002, Addiction.

[46]  Jie Tian,et al.  Microstructure Abnormalities in Adolescents with Internet Addiction Disorder , 2011, PloS one.

[47]  Cynthia L. Turk,et al.  The Internet: home to a severe population of individuals with social anxiety disorder? , 2004, Journal of anxiety disorders.

[48]  May R. Berenbaum,et al.  Caught in the Net , 2001 .