Report

on
INTERNET ADDICTION - A PHENOMENON OF THE MODERN SOCIETY?

submitted to
Matthew Schlegel
University of Technology Dresden
Dresden
July 19, 2007

by
Thomas Gängler
University of Technology Dresden
Department of Computer Science

This report contains information on the background of Internet Addiction and researches about this
phenomenon. The background covers the types, causes and symptoms of Internet Addiction and
its treatments. The research sections discuss whether Internet Addiction exist as a real disorder or
not and shows the change of the results of the research projects over the years.
 ABSTRACT

Internet Addiction can be used to refer to any disorder which is related to the modern medium In-
ternet. It can emerge from different backgrounds. The four main risk types of Internet Addiction are
on-line games, chats and instant messaging services, Internet communities and forums, and Inter-
net pornography. Furthermore, there are many miscellaneous risk types. Internet Addiction is
mainly characterized by an excessive Internet use. Apart from this common feature, the symptoms
of this addiction are more complex. Its cause often originates in the life story of the concerned per-
son, but there are also many more issues which are responsible for the existence of Internet Addic-
tion.
Nowadays, no general treatment method exists. At an early stage self therapy, accompan-
ied or unaccompanied group therapies can be applied. At later stages is it wise to go and seek pro-
fessional psychological care. Even though scientists and psychologists dealt with this topic
throughout the last decade, they were not able to include the whole scope of it. Therefore, the de-
velopment of Internet technologies and their negative side effects pay their tribute to people who
are using the Internet.

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ........................................................................................................... ii
LIST OF FIGURES ................................................................................................ iv
I. INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 1
II.INTERNET ADDICTION ..................................................................................... 2
Related risk types for Internet Addiction .................................................................................... 2
On-line games ....................................................................................................................... 2
Chats and instant messaging services .................................................................................. 2
Internet communities and forums .......................................................................................... 3
Internet pornography ............................................................................................................. 3
Miscellaneous risk types ....................................................................................................... 3
Causes of Internet Addiction ...................................................................................................... 4
The environment ................................................................................................................... 4
The new thing ........................................................................................................................ 4
Psychological problem .......................................................................................................... 4
Symptoms of Internet Addiction ................................................................................................. 5
Physical symptoms ................................................................................................................ 5
Psychological symptoms ....................................................................................................... 5
Behavioural symptoms .......................................................................................................... 5
III.TYPES OF TREATMENT .................................................................................. 7
Self therapy ................................................................................................................................ 7
Group therapy ............................................................................................................................ 8
Professional psychological care ................................................................................................ 8
IV.RESEARCH RESULTS ..................................................................................... 9
Research results of the past year .............................................................................................. 9
Recent research results ............................................................................................................. 9
The change of research results ................................................................................................. 10
V.EXISTENCE OF INTERNET ADDICTION .........................................................11
Internet Addiction Disorder ......................................................................................................... 11
Addiction comparison ................................................................................................................. 12
VI.CONCLUSION ..................................................................................................13
APPENDIX A: TERMINOLOGY ........................................................................... 14
APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY ...........................................................................16

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 LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1. Grohol's Model of Pathological Internet Use .............................................................. 6

iv
 I. INTRODUCTION

The Internet represents the most increasing mass medium of the last years. Besides television, ra-
dio and print mediums, it belongs to the most important media to get information and news from.
Moreover, the Internet is a multi functional medium with a lot of interfaces to fulfil several services.
Apart from the simple task of providing information and news, it serves the human desire of com-
munication through Emails, chats, forums and Internet telephony. Furthermore, it provides a medi-
um to satisfy nearly all primary and secondary human needs. In this context the Internet represents
the most powerful medium of modern mass media, because it provides a huge number of services
with a great variety.
However, such a powerful tool involves a certain danger. A noticeable one is the so-called
Internet Addiction - the topic of this report. The term is an attempt to describe the observed beha-
viour of Internet overuse. Therefore, the purpose of this report is to explain the negative side of this
modern technology and its surroundings. Due to this fact, the report is written in a simple language
to reach a broad audience, because the majority of people using the Internet is also manifold.
This report will be broken into four main sections with the first section containing back-
ground knowledge about Internet Addiction. This will include risk types, its cause, and its symp-
toms. The second section is an attempt of describing possible treatments. It will discuss self ther-
apy, group therapy and professional psychological care. The third section will focus on the re-
search results, which scientists and psychologists received from their research. Finally, the fourth
section will analyse the existence of Internet Addiction. This is followed by a description of the sci-
entific term Internet Addiction Disorder and a comparison to other kind of addictions.

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 II. INTERNET ADDICTION

This section introduces the related risk types, the causes and the symptoms of Internet Addiction.
It provides a common ground to get in touch with this recently discussed topic and to think about
what Internet Addiction is or where the Internet merely provide the medium for an addiction.

Related risk types of Internet Addiction

This division of the related risk types is only an attempt to differentiate the types from each other
and the last type will explain that there are many more. Risk type in this context means that the de-
scribed types might play a role in becoming addicted.

On-line games. On-line games are one of the most discussed topics in relation to Internet Addic-
tion. There are two big groups of on-line games. On the one hand, there are multi player on-line
games (MPOG) and on the other hand, there are single player on-line games (SPOG). Represent-
atives of the first group are World of Warcraft, Counter Strike or Second Life. Games which belong
to the second group are mainly Flash games.
Where the MPOGs develop more and more into the professional sector like complete E-
sport leagues, the single player games are only for simple entertainment in the coffee break. Both
of them have the potential to be recognized as Pathological Gambling, a recognized disorder of the
DSM-IV, the first maybe more than the second group. MPOGs reflect the tightrope walk between a
sporting challenge and an obsession because you have got to be excellent to play games in higher
E-sport leagues.
The little Flash games could turn into a ritual or a normal task in your daily agenda like play-
ing the game every day after lunch for 10 minutes. The risk of playing the game for a longer period
is insignificant in contrast to MPOGs. It is more the issue of how often one plays these little games.
The potentially obsessive may begin to play the little games to fill a gap between the tasks he has
to do and ends with playing the game every break and neglecting the actual tasks.
MPOGs are the extension of traditional games of all kinds like strategy games, roll playing
games or ego shooters while giving the customer the opportunity to play with real challengers in-
stead of precomputed dummies, with not necessarily sitting next to them.

Chats and instant messaging services. Chats belong to a more traditional form of Internet com-
munication. They substitute at first the voice of a human individual into text messages. At a first
sight ,this substitution likes to transform a very different thing into a more uniform one because, in
general, every text message has the same format. Across the evolution of the internet this

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instrument gets more customized. Instant messaging services are a product of this evolution.
Nowadays chats are not only the simple exchange of text messages. Chats, and their sur-
roundings, are more another interesting form of communication. Chat platforms contain a more in-
dividual way to communicate like expressing moods with special smileys (as a picture) or avatars,
or simulating a virtual room where you can move in.
Instant messaging services (IMS) are like a metaphor of a telephone with an answering ma-
chine to the text form. Generally, they provide the same functionality as chats with the exception
that one only writes to a single encounter in a single instance (like a query in a chat). The advant-
age is that you can write a message to your encounter even when he is offline and he will get the
message at the next time when he goes on-line. Common IMSs are ICQ, MSN or AIM. The devel-
opment of this service is to provide more than just message exchange. Today, you can also play
little games with your mates or share data between each other.
The benefit of this risk type is to satisfy the primary need of communication that means a
chat or IMS is the medium to communicate with other people.

Internet communities and forums. Internet communities and forums build a solid base for know-
ledge exchange on a specific field. For every kind of interest, hobby or whatever, exists at least
one portal where you can find a particular group of like-minded people. These places are for
answering detailed questions, providing deeper information, or asking for a solution to a specific
problem. Furthermore, the communities reflect a sense of brotherhood that means to have the feel-
ing of belonging to a group.
Internet communities are like an association or club and its users can be seen as the mem-
bers of this association. The content of these forums is extensive. It ranges from featuring a com-
puter program to providing an address to turn to for a rare illness. Very common portals are
MySpace, YouTube or the German StudiVZ.

Internet pornography. This risk type provides the easiest access to pornography and also maybe
the most anonymous one. The benefit of this type mostly is to satisfy one's instinctual drives.
Therefore, Internet pornography has the certain advantage to offer satisfaction to every variety of
sexual needs. This variety and the multiple existence of it build the threat for an addiction.
The comfortable access way make it also possible to provide children an entrance to porno-
graphy. There is a heap of material where legal protection for children and young persons is not
enabled. This unsafe websites are a huge threat for this generation.

Miscellaneous risk types. There are several other risk types. To give an impression of the wide
range of the other risk types I would only like to name some of them. At first there are the mixed
forms of the risk types mentioned above. An example is, Internet communities containing multi

3
player on-line games including a forum and a chat for information exchange, or flirt platforms in-
cluding a personal page and a chat. Another rare risk type is to keep the system up to date that
means the user is obsessed to get every new update of the programs he has on his computer. Fur-
thermore, there are the information getter, the people who can never fill their knowledge gap and
surf for hours through the sites of Wikipedia from one article to another. At last I would like to men-
tion excessive purchase behaviour in the Internet like buying needless tools at an Ebay auction.

Causes of Internet Addiction

The causes of Internet Addiction are of a great variety, but as I already mentioned in the introduc-
tion of this topic, you have to think about whether the causes depend on Internet Addiction or they
have another background.

The environment. The environment always plays a big role while influencing one's behaviour. If
you realize that all your friends are at the new on-line portal, your aid is also like to be with them
and become a member of this portal. In contrast, one's environment is not always the couple of
friends around, it can also be the encounters you make on the Internet via chat rooms or forums.
Later, one might feel the urge to come back to this place in order to meet these people again. The
environment is also responsible for the development of one's social behaviour in several scenarios.
Thus the relationship between parents and their children, and the way they are being raised, is
very important.

The new thing. This cause is normally observed with every new thing. The user gets enthusiastic
and excited while exploring this new environment, an infinite world of new interesting things. The
diversity of the Internet could stretch this phase to a longer period than those phases of enthusi-
asm at other new things. Some people will never reach the end of this period because they discov-
er new exiting things in this expedition all the time.

Psychological problem. The Internet reflects a huge place or dimension where it is possible to
get everything you would like to get or even imagining it. Therefore, the Internet offers a productive
breeding ground for people with psychological problems, whether they realize their problem or not.
This medium fulfils the whole range of social needs. It satisfied all primary and secondary needs of
humans life. Focusing on an unsociable person, such a loner can get in touch with other people
over the Internet especially in chat rooms or forums.
To analyse this case more generally, if someone has a lack in one of the mentioned needs,
he will find his satisfaction more or less in the environment of the Internet. However, it is nowadays

4
not possible to satisfy all human needs because the Internet or the computer, the common en-
trance to the Internet, could not satisfy all senses like the haptic one. A user could also develops a
dependency to fulfil a desire he could only get in the world of the Internet like pathological sexual
practices or other absurd things.

Symptoms of Internet Addiction

It is also nowadays not clear to separate symptoms of Internet Addiction from other symptoms. It
depends always from the state of view, whether you see the Internet as a medium to satisfy anoth-
er addiction or Internet Addiction as a standalone disorder.

Physical symptoms. There are no real physical symptoms which the scientists could charge to
the Internet. If a Internet user surf in the Internet for hour it is not good for his eyes and he feel
weak after a more or less long period of time. This physical symptom depends not on surfing in the
Internet it depends on sitting in front of the computer and watching into the display and concentrat-
ing to the content which is displayed on the screen. Because the Internet is more a virtual thing you
could not prove that the use of the Internet cause physical changes of one's behaviour only that if
the user have not access to the Internet you do not know what to with himself.

Psychological symptoms. At this issue the scientists notice more changes on tested people. The
analysed show a certain dependency to a subject which is distribute through the Internet and also
physical symptoms like insomniac. Focus on the responsibility of that symptoms it clear that not the
Internet as medium is guilty for that because the services which used the Internet are the perpet-
rators. Generally it is to observe that user who underlying a deprivation of Internet and ordinary us-
ing the Internet for whatever, showing a kind of disorder or desire to this medium.

Behavioural symptoms. This symptoms represent a kind of summary of the symptoms above.
The use behaviour to the Internet is always reflecting in what matter you surf through the Internet.
The kind of how is here the magical question. Is it a passion, a desire, necessity or an addiction? Is
this behaviour through all matter you like to fulfil through the Internet or only through a special one?
Is this behaviour because of the Internet as medium or its content? Does the Internet create this
behaviour or does the Internet use or extend an existing behaviour?
Nevertheless since the beginning of the Internet evolution the medium Internet change be-
haviours in several field like writing an email instead of writing a letter. The Internet reflects strong
the change of behaviour pattern of the civilization through the progress of time. This developments
are not the symptoms of an addiction this are normal one of our modern society.

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 Furthermore the psychologist John M. Grohol tries to sum up the progress of pathological
Internet use in a sequence of phases [2]. He hypothesized a model, which can be more globally
applied to on-line usage in general. Figure 1 below illustrates this model. Some people simply get
caught in Stage I and never move beyond it. They may need some help to get into Stage III.

Figure 1. Grohol's Model of Pathological Internet Use

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 III. TYPES OF TREATMENT

Nowadays, there are general treatment methods developed for Internet Addiction, because it is not
a recognized disorder and the field of this addiction is very wide and not well defined. Psychologist
can only analyse their patients in respect of other kinds of addictions in order to conclude of their
occurrence. In most cases, the cause of an obsessive behaviour of Internet use has a background
not obviously related to one's Internet use.

Self therapy

If one realizes a pathological Internet use or think that he spends to munch time surfing the Inter-
net, the suspect could ask himself several question like those below:
● Are you unable to control your on-line use?
● Do you feel a need to spend more and more time on-line to achieve satisfaction?
● Do you feel restless or irritable when attempting to cut down or stop your on-line use?
● Do you go on-line to escape problems or relieve feelings such as helplessness, guilt, anxi-
ety or depression?
● Do you lie to family members or friends to conceal how often and how long you stay on-
line?
● Do you risk the loss of a significant relationship, job, or educational or career opportunity
because of your on-line use?
● Do you keep returning even after spending too much money on on-line fees?
● Do you go through withdrawal when offline, such as increased depression, moodiness, or
irritability?
● Do you stay on-line longer than originally intended?
If the interviewed person agreed to some of those questions, he should think about his usage of
the Internet. Furthermore, he should analyse why he shows this behaviour. In most cases, the
reason for excessive Internet use does not lie in the fascination for the medium itself, it is more an
inner desire which the obsessive user feels.
On the one hand, if the concerned person cannot find the reason for his problem of Internet
overuse, he may ask some mates for help or try to see a doctor or seek professional psychological
care. On the other hand, if he believes to have found the reason for this overuse, he should try to
find a solution for this problem. Possibly the user realizes that he spends to much time in chats and
on-line forums because he feels lonely. In this case, the concerned person is able find one's way
back and fulfil his daily schedule with other activities like sports or meeting friends at a café. Anoth-
er harder method, is the withdrawal of the Internet. One should only try this method, if previous

7
attempts fail. However, if the Internet-obsessed person is not able to solve the problem himself, he
may seek professional psychological care.
Nevertheless the suspect has to consider all possibilities in order to change his current be-
haviour. If one cannot grant this necessary condition, it will reduce the chance for change of his be-
haviour. In some cases, it is not easy for the concerned person, but it always useful to learn a
healthful manner with the medium Internet and it way of satisfying human needs.

Group therapy

In most case is it easier to commonly cure the addiction, than it is on your own. If one realizes an
excessive Internet use (as a result of having agreed with several questions above) not only on one-
self but also on his friends, he could launch a group therapy with his mates. At first, the revelator
has to draw the attention of the others to this problem. After having completed that task, he should
make it clear to them to solve their problems. Furthermore, should the suspects diagnose that they
all show the same behaviour like Pathological Gambling, they may encourage themselves to solve
it together.
Apart from a self-launched group therapy, it is always wise to join an already existing ther-
apy group if one tries to do a self therapy. Therefore, many addresses exist to turn to for help on, in
the Internet, but also the psychologist nearby can offer professional care. However the decision, a
group therapy will make a difference to the persons' healing process.

Professional psychological care

It is always wise to go and seek professional psychological care, if one's problem turns out to be a
more complex one with a deeper background. As recent and past studies prove, the reasons for
excessive Internet use at a later stage have a more complex background. For this reason, it is ne-
cessary to turn to a psychologist. Nowadays, scientists are of the same opinion that there is no
general method for healing this concerned people. Therefore, it needs a thorough analysis of their
life story to draw conclusions.

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 IV. RESEARCH RESULTS

This section will give a short overview of recent and past results of researches and describe the
changes of the results.

Research results of the past years

Since the mid-nineties scientists and especially psychologists preoccupy with the topic Internet Ad-
diction or related ones. At the beginning of this analysis they drew the conclusion that Internet Ad-
diction is similar to the recognized DSM-IV disorder Pathological Gambling. During the last few
years researchers learned from their initial mistakes because in most cases they only tested a spe-
cifically analysed group and drew their conclusions from this test conditions. Due to these case
studies, they ignored an important variety of Internet users. Focusing on the different kinds of
people who make use of the medium Internet, we can point out some examples:
● The business person, who likes to check his Emails or organize an Internet conference
between long distance conference participants
● The pupil, who likes to research information for a report
● The administrator, who likes to download a new version of the browser, which is used in his
administrated network
● The employee, who likes to do a little game in his coffee break
● The teenager, who likes to check out the party dates for next weekend
● ...
As the reader will see, there is a infinite list of user types and it will be a tough venture to name just
all relevant ones. Furthermore the analysts recognized a more or less fast increase of the number
of Internet user every time. Maybe this value is one of the high increased ones throughout the last
decade. Characteristic for those studies is always a change and enlargement in the user types.
An important research of the past is for example the "HomeNet"-analyse [3], where the sci-
entists equiped a couple of families around Pittsburgh with computers and an Internet connection.
They raised data like Internet connection time and interviewed the test persons about the content
of their Internet sessions. Astonishingly, they diagnosed no increase of the on-line time and no
general change of user's behaviour. The crucial mistake, which most of the researchers did at past
analysis, was to work on a preconditioned goal, which did not contribute to an objective study, thus
falsified it.

Recent research results

As the scientists and psychologists learned from their past mistakes, they additionally have to meet

9
the challenge of the change of the Internet. Not only during the past few years, even during the
past few months or even quicker, the variety of the Internet grows and by it the number of different
and / or new Internet users. Therefore, the analysed field constantly grows as well.
The comfortable access of broadband Internet is the common method to connect to the In-
ternet. The bandwidth also grew through the last decade. So the current researches concentrate
rather on specific topics like the risk types mentioned above. However, the analysts have to merge
the conclusions of the single researches together and draw a parallel or look for connections
between those. Nowadays, the researchers also view this topic from another perspective than they
did before.

The change of the research results

As the paragraphs with the recent and past results of the researches showed, researchers have to
change their point of view while involving the changes of the technological aspect. Generally, an al-
teration of the analysing methods can be observed, but there is also a lot of work for the scientists
and especially the psychologists, who have to deal with treatment methods to care concerned
people. The technology development make does not make it easier for them. Nevertheless, it is a
good signal that scientist view the reasons with different approaches. It would be a huge advant-
age, if the investigations in this research raised like in other disorder researches.

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 V. EXISTENCE OF INTERNET ADDICTION

This section deals with the existence of Internet Addiction. It will explain the more or less scientific-
ally described Internet Addiction Disorder and will compare it with other addition types.

Internet Addiction Disorder

IAD is a theorized disorder made by Ivan Goldberg in 1995 [1]. It should be a suggestion to be in-
cluded into the forthcoming DSM-V. Nevertheless, IAD is not mentioned with a single word in the
"Research Agenda for DSM-V" from the year 2002. At the beginning, Dr. Goldberg posted his spe-
cification in a psychological forum as a comparison to Pathological Gambling and as a little joke
about the rigid format of the DSM. However, here are his proposed criteria in compact [10]:
● Tolerance: This refers to the need for increasing amounts of time on the Internet to achieve
satisfaction and/or significantly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of
time on the Internet
● Two or more withdrawal symptoms developing within days to one month after reduction of
Internet use or cessation of Internet use (i.e., quitting cold turkey), and these must cause
distress or impair social, personal or occupational functioning (These include: psychomotor
agitation, i.e. trembling, tremors; anxiety; obsessive thinking about what is happening on
the Internet; fantasies or dreams about the Internet; voluntary or involuntary typing move-
ments of the fingers)
● Use of the Internet is engaged in to relieve or avoid withdrawal symptoms
● The Internet is often accessed more often, or for longer periods of time than was intended
● A significant amount of time is spent in activities related to Internet use ( e.g., Internet
books, trying out new World Wide Web browsers, researching Internet vendors, etc.)
● Important social, occupational, or recreational activities are given up or reduced because of
Internet use
● The individual risks the loss of a significant relationship, job, educational or career oppor-
tunity because of excessive use of the Internet
Three or more of these criteria must be present at any time during a twelve month period. In recent
research, other characteristics have been identified, like:
● Feeling of restlessness or irritability when attempting to cut down or stop Internet use
● The Internet is used as a way of escaping problems or relieving feelings of helplessness,
guilt, anxiety or depression
● The user lies to family members or friends to conceal the extent of involvement with the In-
ternet
● The user returns repeatedly despite excessive fees

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Addiction comparison

As already mentioned the comparison between Internet Addiction and Pathological Gambling is
obsolete. But how to deal with the term Internet Addiction? Is it just a bad trial to describe an exist-
ing phenomenon or is it a kind of meta level to summarize all occurrences of addiction disorder re-
lated to the medium Internet?
Nevertheless, the Internet is an abstract definition for many modern things. It is a big prot-
agonist of the computer revolution and representative of our contemporary society helper. Finally,
maybe every comparison with other addiction types is obsolete, because the Internet only supports
existing additions or creates new ones, which are only possible after the progress of the develop-
ment of Internet related technologies.

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 VI. CONCLUSION

As the reader can see, this report is just a short survey to border the problematic nature of a com-
mon problem of our modern society. I tried to give a compact view, but the topic is too complex to
present an entire overview of it.
Several scientists and psychologists have dealt with this problem and changed their point of
view or broadened their knowledge about it. Nevertheless, it is a shame that they had drawn con-
clusions of results of analysis, where the test persons were not randomly selected. However, there
are a lot of interesting studies and articles about it, as can be seen in the bibliography.
To draw a true conclusion to the related topic of the report is not an easy task. Indeed, I will
give it a try. My hypothesis is that Internet Addiction as an existing term could only fulfil the defini-
tion of a generic term, which includes all addictions related to the medium Internet except all exist-
ing addictions where this medium offers just a breeding ground to satisfy them. Like is the case
with every new thing where mankind has to learn how to use the medium Internet in healthy way. A
majority of our society not to underestimate is not able to control the use of modern technologies,
because the rapid progress of this technological development is too fast for them.
As I already mentioned the Internet represents a high technology medium, which can fulfil
the range of most human needs in an easy accessible manner. Perhaps, there is the big fault of
speaking of a new phenomenon. Here I like to quote the Integration Principle from John Suler [7]:
"Internet use becomes pathological when it is dissociated from in-person life. It becomes healthy
when it is integrated with in-person living."
It can merely be an invitation to all scientists and psychologist, who deal with related topics
like addiction disorder of every kind, to analyse the impact of modern media like Internet, according
to their research fields. They have to create a kind of meta level to prevent the prejudice that the
progress of modern technologies is responsible for such disorders, and to provide a basis to ex-
plain a healthy behaviour in the use new technologies to the majority of users. Furthermore, it is
useful to develop preventive measures like manuals for self therapies or group therapies for con-
cerned people.
Finally, the Internet as a marvellous milestone in the history of our civilization should sup-
port the global process of bonding and the intercommunication between people all over the world.
It should not just be illustrated as a medium which support addictions.

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 APPENDIX A: TERMINOLOGY
● MPOG: Multi-player on-line game; a game where several challenger play together a com-
puter game via Internet
● SPOG: Single-player on-line game; a game where a challenger plays a computer game via
Internet
● World of Warcraft: A common strategy MPOG with a fantasy story as background and a
high potential of addiction
● Counter Strike: A common Ego-shooter MPOG where the challengers can play the role of
terrorists or the army
● Second Life: A relatively new role MPOG where the participants can try to copy real life
into a virtual world
● Flash: A tool to program and represent interactive content / scenarios; also commonly used
to program little simple games for on-line use
● E-sport: A term to describe computer games, which could be played in competitions and
supporting the sportive attitude behind it
● DSM: The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders; published by the Americ-
an Psychiatric Association; is the standard classification of mental disorders used by mental
health professionals in the United States; it is intended to be applicable in a wide array of
contexts and used by clinicians and researchers of many different orientations ; it also con-
tains diagnostic codes that can be used to satisfy record-keeping and reimbursement
needs; the current version is DSM-IV; the forthcoming version DSM-V should be available
after 2011 [11]
● Pathological Gambling: A recognized disorder of the DSM-IV dealing with gambling ad-
diction
● Smiley: An image of a mostly yellow face showing different emotions
● IMS: Instant messaging service; a Internet messaging tool for exchanging messages
between on-line encounters where a server can save messages and provide them for
mates who are off-line
● ICQ: I seek you; a common representative of the communication tool class IMS
● MSN: Microsoft messenger; a common representative of the communication tool class IMS
● AIM: AOL instant messenger; a common representative of the communication tool class
IMS
● MySpace: A Internet portal where everyone can have a own site to represent oneself; this
Internet platform is mostly used by musicians
● YouTube: An Internet portal where everyone can represent one's own, mostly funny videos
that can be viewed by every visitor of this website

14
● StudiVZ: A German Internet portal where every student can have his own site and meet
other students and mates in a huge network
● Wikipedia: An on-line information portal where everyone can publish definitions and ex-
planations of a term, or seek for term; this Internet platform would be administrated from the
user of it; Wikipedia is available in several languages
● Ebay: The biggest on-line auction portal where everyone can offer own article or bet on
offered ones from other people
● IAD: Internet Addiction Disorder; a suggested description of Internet overuse for the DSM
firstly named by John Goldberg

15
 APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY
● [1] Several authors. "Internet Addiction Disorder" 2007.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_addiction_disorder
● [2] Grohol, John M., Psy. D. "Internet Addiction Guide" 2006.
http://psychcentral.com/netaddiction/
● [3] Kraut, Robert, Prof. "HomeNet" 1998.
http://homenet.andrew.cmu.edu/progress/
● [4] Suler, John, Ph. D. "Why is This Thing Eating My Life?" 1996.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/eatlife.html
● [5] Suler, John, Ph. D. "Computer and Cyberspace Addiction" 2004.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/cybaddict.html
● [6] Suler, John, Ph. D. "To Get What You Need" 1999.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/getneed.html
● [7] Suler, John, Ph. D. "Bringing Online and Offline Living Together" 2000.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/integrate.html
● [8] Suler, John, Ph. D. "Mom, Dad, Computer" 1998.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/comptransf.html
● [9] Suler, John, Ph. D. "Internet Addiction in a Nutshell" 1999.
http://www.rider.edu/~suler/psycyber/nutshell.html
● [10] Ferris, Jennifer R. "Internet Addiction Disorder" .
http://www.chem.vt.edu/chem-dept/dessy/honors/papers/ferris.html
● [11] Several authors. "DSM-V" .
http://www.dsm5.org/

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