The association between Internet addiction and dissociation among Turkish college students
Introduction
Dissociation is generally defined as “a disruption in the usually integrated functions of consciousness, memory, identity, and perception of the environment” [1]. Dissociative experiences are common in the general population and become pathologic when they cause marked distress and interfere with functioning [2]. Dissociative symptoms may intersect with different kinds of psychiatric disorders [3], and a growing body of literature indicates that dissociation has a negative influence on treatment outcome in several psychiatric syndromes [4].
Excessive or problematic use of the Internet has been a topic of discussion in the academic literatures for more than a decade. Although a standardized definition has not been uniformly agreed upon, it is generally recognized that problematic Internet use involves an individual's inability to control his or her use of the Internet, negative consequences (e.g., failing in school, decreased productivity), and marked distress and/or functional impairment [5], [6]. Whether Internet addiction is a primary addictive disorder or a secondary disorder of other psychiatric disorders has remained controversial [7]. Cross-sectional studies on samples of patients report high comorbidity of Internet addiction with psychiatric disorders such as major depression [8], bipolar disorder [9], obsessive-compulsive disorder [10], attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder [11], and substance use disorder [9].
The association of Internet addiction with dissociation has heretofore been evaluated only in a few studies with small sample sizes. In the first study concerning this topic [12], an association was found between dissociative symptoms and higher hours spent per week on the Web among adult outpatients who were admitted to overusing the Web. The second study [13] has enrolled 312 undergraduate students revealing that individuals with Internet addiction experienced more dissociative symptoms than nonaddicts in relationship with alexithymia. In addition, in an experimental study with 30 individuals [14], virtual reality was shown to induce dissociation. We believe these findings should be replicated in a larger sample of subjects.
Our aim was to investigate Internet use patterns and Internet addiction among young adult university students. In addition, the present study examined the relationship between Internet addiction and dissociative experiences in a large nonclinical population, namely Turkish college students.
Section snippets
Participants
The study was conducted among the college students aged 18 to 27 years at Duzce University (Turkey) between March and July 2007. The target subjects of this study were all the students in Duzce University (n = 3456). The recruitment process was performed in classrooms. A total of 1123 students voluntarily participated as subjects for the study (32.4%). Participants received no credit or compensation for their participation in the study. After oral information and consent, all participants were
Results
The sample consisted of 616 male students (59.6%) and 418 female students (40.4%), with a mean age of 20.41 ± 2.06 years (range, 18-27 years). According to the IAS, 9.7% of the study sample was found to be addicted to the Internet. Comparison of students with or without Internet addiction with respect to age, mean DES score, and duration of weekly Internet use are represented in Table 1. As shown in Table 2, 78 (12.6%) of male students and 23 (5.5%) of female students were Internet addicts, and
Discussion
A considerable amount of literature published so far on Internet addiction reveals that it is a worldwide phenomenon [21]. The lack of a standardized definition and diagnostic instruments that show adequate reliability and validity across countries are significant limitations in estimating the prevalence of problematic Internet use. Despite the diversity in definition, Internet addiction is generally reported as a widespread condition among college students with prevalence rates ranging from
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2022, Journal of Affective DisordersCitation Excerpt :internet addiction (IA), first introduced by Ivan Goldberg (1995), is considered a social problem rooted in an inability to control personal use of the Internet. Although prevalence estimates of IA vary as a function of context and survey methodology [e.g., 4–12% in the U.S. (Christakis et al., 2011), 1–9% in Europe (Bousoño Serrano et al., 2017), 1–12% in the Middle East (Canan et al., 2010), 3.6–15.8% in Japan (Takahashi et al., 2018), and 6.9–16.4% in China (Canan et al., 2012)], impacts of IA on human health have emerged as a major global concern, and IA is conceptualized increasingly as a psychopathological disorder (Vigna-Taglianti et al., 2017; Young and Abreu, 2011). It is of current interest that, relative to problematic online gaming, the association of IA may be stronger in relation to more common forms of psychopathology such as depression (Andreassen et al., 2016; Király et al., 2014).
Systematic review and meta-analysis of epidemiology of internet addiction
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2020, Addictive Behaviors Reports