Internet Addiction Affects Behavior and Development of Adolescents

The following is excerpted from an online article posted by MedicalXpress.

Adolescents with an internet addiction undergo changes in the brain that could lead to additional addictive behavior and tendencies, finds a new study by UCL researchers.

The findings, published in PLOS Mental Health, reviewed 12 articles involving 237 young people aged 10–19 with a formal diagnosis of internet addiction between 2013 and 2023.

Internet addiction has been defined as a person’s inability to resist the urge to use the internet, negatively impacting their psychological well-being, as well as their social, academic and professional lives.

The studies used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to inspect the functional connectivity (how regions of the brain interact with each other) of participants with internet addiction, both while resting and completing a task.

The effects of internet addiction were seen throughout multiple neural networks in the brains of adolescents. There was a mixture of increased and decreased activity in the parts of the brain that are activated when resting (the default mode network).

Meanwhile, there was an overall decrease in the functional connectivity in the parts of the brain involved in active thinking (the executive control network).

These changes were found to lead to addictive behaviors and tendencies in adolescents, as well as behavior changes associated with intellectual ability, physical coordination, mental health and development.

Source: MedicalXpress
https://medicalxpress.com/news/2024-06-internet-addiction-affects-behavior-adolescents.html