Concern about the use of the Internet and new technologies by children and adolescents is increasing. In fact, a study by UNICEF Spain revealed that one in three adolescents makes problematic use of the Internet and social networks and one in five may be addicted to video games. Now, a new review of studies carried out by researchers at University College London (UCL) has evaluated the effects of Internet addiction on the brains of adolescents.
The results have just been published in PLOS Mental Health and reveal that internet addiction is associated with disruptions in the signalling of brain regions involved in multiple neural networks. These networks play a key role in controlling our attention, intellectual capacity, working memory, physical coordination and emotional processing, all of which influence mental health.
Internet use has increased dramatically, with many teenagers spending more and more time surfing the web and posting or checking their social media accounts, leading to an increase in internet addiction in this age group. Teenage brains are more susceptible to change than adult brains, so it is vitally important to understand the effects this dependency has on their brain and behaviour.
Changes in brain networks that regulate adolescent behavior
The researchers focused on the analysis of 12 neuroimaging studies of adolescents with Internet addiction that examined changes in connectivity between brain networks, which act together to regulate important behaviors and developments in adolescents. Interestingly, the neuroimaging studies that met the authors’ criteria in terms of age range and formal diagnosis of Internet addiction were all conducted in Asia – specifically in China, South Korea, and Indonesia – despite the numerous cases of Internet addiction in the West.
In all of the studies reviewed, when adolescents with Internet addiction engaged in activities controlled by the brain’s executive control network (such as behaviors requiring attention, planning, decision-making, and especially impulsivity), those brain regions showed significant disruption in their ability to work together compared to age-matched individuals without Internet addiction.
When activating the network in default mode, the results varied more; however, disrupted functional connectivity was often reported during tasks requiring self-introspection and attention. Such changes in signalling could mean that these behaviours become more difficult to perform, potentially affecting development and wellbeing.
However, as the authors state, “current responses only paint an incomplete picture that does not necessarily describe internet use as overwhelmingly positive or negative.” Further studies involving more people from a broader population are needed to confirm how internet addiction changes the way the brain controls behaviors and, therefore, our overall well-being.
“Current responses only paint an incomplete picture that does not necessarily describe internet use as overwhelmingly positive or negative.”
David Ellis, a researcher at the Institute for Digital Behaviour and Security at the University of Bath (UK), who was not involved in the study, is critical of the research and its conclusions, as he told Science Media Centre UK. “Firstly,” he says, “the causal language used is misleading. For example, titles such as ‘How Internet addiction affects functional connectivity’ and the suggestion of ‘effects’ are inaccurate. A cause-effect relationship cannot be drawn from these studies.”
The expert warns that “the conceptualisation and measurement of internet ‘addiction’ is not universally accepted and certainly cannot be diagnosed with the survey instruments used in the studies included in the review. Similarly, the enormity of activities that the internet enables makes this definition immediately redundant.” He adds that “such definitions, despite being widely criticised, also tend to shift the focus away from the real harms online and towards a conclusion that suggests removing technology from people’s lives will be helpful. There is no strong evidence that removing the internet brings tangible benefits.”
“What we do know is that self-reported ‘addiction’ measures, as used in the papers reviewed here, appear to measure how much someone worries in general. Indeed, we have repeatedly found that surveys used to assess related ‘addictions’ measure a poorly defined construct that sometimes overlaps with pre-existing measures of well-being. More importantly, these assessments are poorly associated with the actual time someone spends using digital technologies, including the internet.” “This means that any association between functional connectivity and internet ‘addiction’ is at the mercy of multiple confounding factors, making it nearly impossible to draw robust conclusions from the papers reviewed,” the researcher concludes.
