CYBER ​​ADDICTION: SYMPTOMS, TYPES, CAUSES, CONSEQUENCES, PREVENTION - ARTE - 2025

The cyberaddiction is a disease characterized by an obsessive and addictive use of new technologies in the daily life of the person. It is generally related to the use of the Internet, but it can also have to do with other elements such as video games or social networks.

People who suffer from cyber addiction use technology constantly, and focus on it during their free time in such a way that the rest of their daily life activities are relegated to the background. For example, an individual affected by this problem would spend all day reviewing the same applications over and over again, in an attempt to entertain themselves and get some stimulation.

As it is an addiction, the symptoms and consequences are very similar to those of other pathologies in this category. Thus, people affected by cyber addiction often suffer large doses of anxiety and other negative emotions. In addition, their ability to receive pleasure from other sources is greatly diminished, such that they increasingly rely on technology to feel good.

Cyber ​​addiction has been around for several decades, but it has reached really high levels of prevalence with the advent of smartphones. Due to the fact that we carry them with us continuously and the stimulation they offer, more and more people are suffering from symptoms of this pathology.

Symptoms

People with cyber addiction can use the smartphone in work situations, because they have lost control of its use

As in the case of many other psychological conditions, the symptoms of cyber addiction are usually classified into three different types: cognitive, emotional and behavioral. To try to better understand this disease, it is necessary to study the most important within each of these categories.

Cognitive symptoms

In most cases of cyber addiction, the first symptom that can be noticed is great difficulty concentrating on a single task. The person feels the compulsive urge to switch from one activity to another constantly, and has great trouble maintaining a single train of thought or focusing on a particular topic for long periods of time.

On the other hand, it is very common for people with cyber addiction to feel a kind of "mental fog": the feeling that their thoughts are slower than they normally do, coupled with great psychological fatigue and the need to rest a lot more than usual.

In addition to this, generally people with this pathology lose interest in those activities and hobbies that previously attracted their attention. If the problem is not treated, all the cognitive symptoms feed back and the individual becomes increasingly dependent on the Internet for entertainment and to pass the time.

Emotional symptoms

A cyber-addicted person often uses the smartphone in personal conversations

The emotional symptoms are probably the ones that show most clearly that this pathology is really an addiction, similar to that which occurs with gambling or with addictive substances such as drugs.

People with cyber addiction feel that they "need" to be constantly checking their computer or mobile phone, and they experience great suffering if they cannot.

Normally, this suffering manifests itself in the form of anxiety, an extremely unpleasant sensation that only diminishes to a certain extent when the person can check their mobile phone, their email or the specific object of their addiction. Over time, your tolerance for anxiety becomes lower and lower and therefore the addiction tends to worsen in the long term if you do not intervene in some way.

In addition to this, people who suffer from cyber addiction often experience a reduction in their emotions to a greater or lesser extent. This, known as anhedonia, implies that your only source of enjoyment is spending time connected to the Internet, thus neglecting other areas of your life.

Behavioral symptoms

The way people with cyber addiction behave is clearly compulsive. Often without realizing what they are doing, they spend most of their time checking their notifications again and again, addicted to a video game or posting on social networks, it depends on which variant they suffer from.

The rest of the daily activities of these individuals are generally abandoned in favor of technology addiction, which can bring very severe complications in the medium and long term.

Types of cyber addiction

Adolescents and children are at great risk of developing this pathology if the use of new technology is not controlled.

There is no single official classification that collects all the types of cyber addiction that exist. However, some authors have tried to divide the problem into several groups based on what type of technology is causing the symptoms. Next we will see one of the most common classifications for this pathology.

- Cybersex addiction

Cybersex addiction is one of the easiest to understand simply by its name. It implies the compulsive need to visit pornography pages, adult chats, erotic webcam sites and portals of this style. In addition to the symptoms already described above, this type of cyber addiction can make it difficult to enjoy sex in real life.

- Network compulsions

This type of cyber addiction encompasses various behaviors that can lead a person to lose real money if they cannot control them. These include compulsive online shopping, participation in virtual casinos and addiction to online auctions.

- Addiction to virtual relationships

One of the most common types of cyber addiction is the one that involves the need to seek attention from other people through the Internet. Within this category we could find the obsession with social networks, with dating applications or websites, or even with services as seemingly innocuous as email.

- Compulsive search for information

Internet opens the doors for us to acquire all the knowledge available in the world. Some people, however, get addicted to the process of searching for new information and spend much of their day browsing the Internet looking at disjointed data. Although this form of cyber addiction is the most difficult to recognize, it is no less harmful than the others.

- Video game addiction

Although some experts do not include it in the same category as those of the other types, video game addiction is one of the most common pathologies among the youngest people in the developed world, and also one of the ones that cause the most psychological and social problems today.

Causes

A cyber-addicted person has the urge to use the smartphone even when doing other activities, such as going to the gym

There is no single cause of cyber addiction in all cases. On the contrary, there are normally a series of factors that can make the development of this pathology much more likely in people who suffer from them.

One of the reasons why cyber addiction is becoming increasingly common is the presence of technology in all areas of our lives. People are increasingly connected and aware of the mobile at all times, so it is more and more frequent that we end up developing an addiction to this element.

On the other hand, technology itself has a very powerful effect on our brain's reward circuitry. Neuroimaging studies show that when we receive a notification, we receive a surge of dopamine, the neurotransmitter responsible for giving us pleasure. Over time, we become more and more dependent on these notifications to feel good.

In addition to this, nowadays people who are not constantly connected can feel displaced, since a large part of the communication that occurs in our day-to-day lives occurs in an online medium. Putting all these factors together, it is not surprising that cyber addiction is one of the most frequent problems in developed countries.

Consequences

Although addiction to technology is so prevalent today, this does not imply that it is less harmful. On the contrary, various studies in this regard have shown that it can cause effects as harmful as other addictions perceived as more severe, such as those related to gambling or drugs.

Thus, people with cyber addiction often have very serious emotional problems, including episodes of anxiety or depression. On the other hand, they often find it difficult to maintain balance in their lives, which can lead to the loss of their job and the deterioration of their social relationships.

In some of the most common types of cyber addiction, in addition, the person may lose all their money (network compulsions) or the ability to interact with others in real life in a satisfactory way (addiction to cybersex and virtual relationships).

Prevention

Although it is possible to treat cyber addiction once it has occurred, it is generally much more interesting to try to prevent its development. To do this, there are two fundamental factors that must be worked on at all times: the creation of healthy habits, and the development of an adequate social network.

Among the most important healthy habits in the prevention of addiction to technology we find exercise, participation in hobbies that are not related to the Internet, and the establishment and pursuit of personal goals.

On the other hand, having an adequate social network will greatly prevent the person from becoming dependent on technology to feel pleasure, since social interactions are also a very important source of dopamine.

References

1. "What is internet addiction?" at: Addiction Recovery. Retrieved on: January 27, 2020 from Addiction Recovery: addictionrecov.org.
2. "What is cyber addiction?" at: Online Sense. Retrieved on: January 27, 2020 from Online Sense: onlinesense.org.
3. "What is internet addiction?" at: Addiction Center. Retrieved on: January 27, 2020 from Addiction Center: addictioncenter.com.
4. "Internet addiction disorder" in: Psycom. Retrieved on: January 27, 2020 from Psycom: psycom.net.
5. "Internet addiction" in: Wikipedia. Retrieved on: January 27, 2020 from Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org.