Internet addictions ‘cause health risks’

Paul Levy, University of Brighton Senior Lecturer in the Brighton Business School, says there is an urgent need for more research into digital addiction so that policies to help people can be developed.

He said there were serious concerns that mobile phones alone lead to repetitive strain injuries, can harm the parent-child bond, and can make addicts prone to mood swings.

Writing in the academic website The Conversation, he said: “The problem with the topic of digital addiction is that there are no definitive scientific studies that have established it as a genuine condition.

“As far back as 2006 the American Journal of Psychiatry recommended digital addiction be more formally recognised, but studies are still largely piecemeal and no authoritative view exists.”

Mr Levy pointed to growing research trying to measure the impact of digital addiction, including a University of Missouri study reporting that increases in stress could be recorded when people had their smart phones taken away.

Recent studies, he noted, highlighted the concern that “internet addiction is resistant to treatment, entails significant risks, and has high relapse rates”.

He pointed to a rise in clinics serving digital addicts, an increasing amount of personal testimony from self-described addicts, and more firmly established evidence for repetitive strain injuries arising from overuse of technology.

Until a tipping point is reached, he warned, parents, teachers, managers and gamers will carry on checking into clinics and become a generation with prematurely arthritic fingers, backache, and yet-to-be named psychological disorders.

Mr Levy said: “It all points to an urgent need for far more comprehensive research – research that can really inform how the government approaches the problem with policy, as well as something to guide parents and managers in the workplace.”