Stanford Internet Addiction Study [news release]

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine report that potential markers of problematic Internet use are present in a sizeable portion of the population. If you read the full news release "Internet addiction: Stanford study seeks to define whether it's a problem" (2006, October 17), you'll note many parallels with gambling prevalence studies and gambling addiction in general. For instance:

• "...strong drive to compulsively use the Internet to check e-mail, make blog entries or visit Web sites or chat rooms, is not unlike what sufferers of substance abuse or impulse-control disorders experience: a repetitive, intrusive and irresistible urge to perform an act that may be pleasurable in the moment but that can lead to significant problems on the personal and professional levels."
  
• "A 1999 Center for Internet Studies survey of 18,000 Internet users, however, did find that 5.7 percent of the sample met suggested criteria for 'compulsive' Internet use."
  
• "But he added that there is little consensus among clinicians on whether problematic Internet use is a distinct disorder or merely an expression of other psychopathologies, such as depression or obsessive-compulsive disorder."
  
• "While the numbers indicate that a subset of people might have a problem with Internet use, Aboujaoude stressed that it’s premature to say whether people in the sample actually have a clinical disorder."

The news release also notes that the full paper appears in the October issue of CNS Spectrums: The International Journal of Neuropsychiatric Medicine.