In a groundbreaking study using MRI scanners, a team of scientists have shown how Internet dependency will effect the same brain abnormalities that people addicted to alcohol, cocaine and cannabis have. It is hoped that the findings will throw light on other behavioural problems and lead to the development of new approaches to treatment.
There are an estimated 5 to 10 per cent of Internet users thought to be addicted. By addicted it is meant that they are unable to control their use. The majority of these are games players who play for so long they will go without food or drink for long periods, while their education, work and relationships will suffer as a result.
The team of Chinese researchers scanned the brains of 17 adolescents diagnosed with "Internet addiction disorder" and compared them with scans from 16 of their peers. The results displayed impairment of white matter fibres in the brain connecting regions involved in emotional processing, attention, decision making and cognitive control. This is very similar to the changes in white matter that have been observed in other forms of addiction to substances such as alcohol and cocaine.
"The findings suggest that white matter integrity may serve as a potential new treatment target in Internet addiction disorder," the scientists wrote in the online journal Public Library of Science One.
Henrietta Bowden Jones, a consultant psychiatrist at Imperial College, London, who is in charge of Britain's only NHS clinic for Internet addicts and problem gamblers, told The Independent that: "The majority of people we see with serious Internet addiction are gamers – people who spend long hours in roles in various games that cause them to disregard their obligations. I have seen people who stopped attending university lectures, failed their degrees or their marriages broke down because they were unable to emotionally connect with anything outside the game."
Bowden Jones added that while most people spend more time online than they did ten years, this is not evidence of addiction.
"It is different. We are doing it because modern life requires us to link up over the net in regard to jobs, professional and social connections – but not in an obsessive way. When someone comes to you and says they did not sleep last night because they spent 14 hours playing games, and it was the same the previous night, and they tried to stop but they couldn't – you know they have a problem. It does tend to be the gaming that catches people out."
However, Professor Michael Farrell, director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Australia, warned that the study did have its limitations.
"The limitations [of this study] are that it is not controlled, and it's possible that illicit drugs, alcohol or other caffeine-based stimulants might account for the changes. The specificity of 'Internet addiction disorder' is also questionable."