Issue Description and External Stressors
With the advent of information technology (IT), and particularly Information and communications technology (ICT), the role of the Internet and especially social media has reached exponential growth. Due to the increasingly large amount of information that the Internet offers its users, the development of addition toward the incessant consumption of data becomes highly probable. Teenagers are particularly vulnerable toward developing what has been given the name of Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) (Gupta, Khan, Rajoura, & Srivastava, 2018). Due to the presence of the stressors such as peer pressure to become an active member of a social network or a particular online community, adolescents are very susceptible to developing a range of comorbid health issues that typically manifest themselves in the form of anxiety but may reach the form of depression (Gupta et al., 2018). Moreover, excessive use of the Internet and the uncontrollable urge to consume online data have proven to lead to sleep issues, impulsivity, mood disorder, and, in extreme cases, even suicidal ideations (Tripathi, 2017). To combat the specified issue, active education is required to teach adolescents moderation in their use of the Internet.
Assessment Strategies
Screening for Internet Addiction and External Stressors
Although the external symptoms of the IAD may vary across the target demographic, the common signs of developing the specified type of addiction and the failure to handle it independently can still be identified with the help of an appropriate test. For this purpose, the Internet Process Addiction Test (IPAT) should be used since it allows detecting the symptoms that indicate the Internet overuse that reaches extraordinary rates and needs to be handled with appropriate intervention and therapy. The test allows determining the extent to which an adolescent is dependent on the consumption of the data generated on the Internet (Tripathi, 2017). The validity of the specified tool has been proven quite high by recent studies, including the papers by Chin (2018) and Northrup, Lapierre, Kirk, and Rae (2018). Apart from determining the presence of key symptoms, the specified test allow locating external stressors leading to the aggravation of a patient’s condition.
Support Options for Adolescents Encountering External Stressors
Although it took quite a while for academics and health authorities to recognize the existence of IA, as well as the negative effects that it has on adolescents, a plethora of support options have already been created for teenagers that struggle to overcome their addiction to social networks and other information sources that the Internet provides. The program known as restart has been devised specifically to help the teenagers that struggle with Internet addiction and need to receive guidance from healthcare experts in fighting it (Tripathi, 2017). The program has proven to have a gradual effect on teenagers’ propensity toward overusing IT and ICT technologies, specifically, social networks (Chan et al., 2018). Moreover, the program in question has been shown to affect adolescents’ need for the consumption of information on the Internet, in general (Chan et al., 2018). However, despite the positive effects of the restart tool, other innovative suggestions for addressing IAT are needed so that new factors encouraging adolescents to overuse the Internet could be addressed. Therefore, the issue of Internet addiction represents a crucial public health concern that manifests itself especially clearly in adolescents. Therefore, in addition to interventions, a health literacy program is needed.
References
Chan, M. L. E., Cheung, W. T. N., Yeung, N. Y. D., Kwok, F. P. A., & Wong, H. Y. R. (2018). An evaluation study of the “RESTART” program – Short-term residential treatment for addiction. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 16(6), 1357-1372. Web.
Chin, F., & Leung, C. H. (2018). The concurrent validity of the internet addiction test (IAT) and the mobile phone dependence questionnaire (MPDQ). PloS One, 13(6), 1-15. Web.
Gupta, A., Khan, A. M., Rajoura, O. P., & Srivastava, S. (2018). Internet addiction and its mental health correlates among undergraduate college students of a university in North India. Journal of Family Medicine and Primary Care, 7(4), 721-727. Web.
Northrup, J. C., Lapierre, C., Kirk, J., & Rae, C. (2015). The Internet Process Addiction Test: Screening for addictions to processes facilitated by the Internet. Behavioral Sciences, 5(3), 341-352. Web.
Tripathi, A. (2017). Impact of internet addiction on mental health: An integrative therapy is needed. Integrative Medicine International, 4(3-4), 215-222. Web.