Teenage Internet Addiction Prepares for Adult Addiction

Internet addiction is a disorder. We hear a lot about the implications of addiction and many are the studies and articles dealing with the problem. We can describe it as compulsive behavior which prevents one from living a normal life. We can see it with the use of smartphones and the way they are used in daily life, a dependency that dominates life. An article in the Catholic times gives us some information on the issue.


Adolescents using PC rooms, chatting, and gaming are more likely says a recent study by a professor at the Catholic Medical School and a research center to be addicted to smoking and drinking as adults.
(PCs are commercial gaming places where patrons play games for an hourly fee of 50 cents or more. It is a place of social contact for gamers, they may buy snacks and the hardware is more technically powerful than what they have in the home).

The team selected a group of 15-year-old teenagers, who didn't smoke or drink and revisited them 5 years later to analyze their habits of drinking and smoking. Use of the internet, place, time and reasons were studied to reach their results.

Those who often chatted, played games, watched adult sites, at 20 showed a connection to excessive drinking and those who used PC rooms were smokers. The team saw this not only as a Korean problem but a worldwide problem. They concluded that the young person's brain is not fully formed and the reason addiction has a greater influence on the brains of the young.

One person expressed the opinion that the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully formed and when exposed to material that is addictive the development is hampered and when they are adults the danger of addiction is greater. Excessive use of the internet will facilitate addiction.

The research team reached the conclusion: excessive use of the internet will delay the development of the brain and the danger of addiction will be greater as an adult.

Consequently from an early age a need is present to prevent addiction by education and programs for the young. There has been studies that have shown the correlation of use of the internet and addiction to smoking and drinking. These studies, however, have been fragmentary. This was a study of 4000 teenagers who after 5 years were again interviewed significantly showing a  correlation between the use of the internet and future addictive behavior.

If parents wont allow the children to use the internet for gaming there will be resistance. They need to find other ways in which the young people can remove stress and entertain themselves. Instead of using PC rooms, they recommend, having the computer in the living room and the time to play games determined with the parents.