What is Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD)?
psychcentral.com John M. Grohol, Psy.D. What IAD is is difficult to define at this time. Research to date has been composed exclusively of exploratory surveys, which cannot establish causal relationships between specific behaviors and their cause. While surveys can help establish descriptions of how people feel about themselves and their behaviors, they cannot draw conclusions about whether a specific technology, such as the Internet, has actually caused those behaviors. Those conclusions which are drawn are purely speculative and subjective made by the researchers themselves. They cannot be supported by existing data.
What “Internet addiction disorder” (IAD) is still difficult to define at this time. Much of the original research was based upon the weakest type of research methodology, namely exploratory surveys with no clear hypothesis or rationale backing them. Coming from an atheoretical approach has some benefits, but also is not typically recognized as being a strong way to approach a new disorder. More recent research has expanded upon the original surveys and anecdotal case study reports. However, as I will illustrate below later, even these studies don’t support the conclusions the authors claim. Preview Website – 1-Apr-2000 – Hits: 2900 – Rate This | Details “Maladaptive Internet Use This article critiques the 2005 APA Poster Presentation on Maladaptive Internet Use. Preview Website – 8-Sep-2006 – Hits: 119 – Rate This | Details CyberSexualAddiction.com This website defines Cyber Sexual Addiction and helps connect individuals to helpful resources. Loss of control, continuation despite negat
