Over the many years internet
became part of your lives. From virtuality in the past internet is now quite
real entity. As real entity it can impact your lives through Facebook, YouTube,
skype, streams, online gaming and etc. As can be seen from the documental movie
“” internet can be quite addictive. Internet provide variety of options to
spend time and people just escape reality by using internet. Unfortunately, it
has some consequence. Online gaming, such as league of legends and DOTA2, and
internet itself can impact to the physiology by affecting to the brain structure
and behavior. It affects every generation and effects different countries at
different rate. For example, 11.6% in Turkey, 10.8% in China and 10.7% in South Korea addicted to
internet from the age from 12 to 19. As a consequence, in DSM-5 (Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), which is official guide of mental
disorders, includes internet gaming disorder as psychological disorder. In this
paper I will try to examine mechanism of the brain and behavioral changes after
internet addiction. I will discuss paper written by Kimberly et al., which
makes analogy between internet addiction, alcohol abuse and gambling. In
addition, neuroimaging picture of the person brain addicted to internet was
discussed in the article by Daria and Mark. Finally, association between
internet addiction and psychological disorders, such as depressive disorder
will be discussed and give personal opinion of that issue.
Currently about three
billion users in the internet. Unfortunately, internet can lead to addiction
among population. Internet addiction is one of the recently emergent disease. For
example, it can associate to depression, ADHD, social anxiety and hostility.
Hikikamori phenomenon from Japan, when people socially withdrawn from the
society for more than six month. Socially, withdrawn people usually excessively
use internet. Many of them become addictive to online gaming. Gaming and
internet use can lead to the strong daily behavior. Behavior can change brain
structure by phenomenon called brain plasticity. Brain plasticity allows new
neuronal connections to form, while destroying the old ones. Changes in the
brain structure can be studied by neuroimaging techniques, such as PET, MRI, CT
and SPECT. As a result, brain and behavior changes may lead to changes in
personality. Person may develop or become predisposed to certain psychological
diseases.
Internet addition was
associated with negative behavioral and psychological symptoms. In this paper I
tried to identify neuroimaging studies that give insight to the specific brain
changes and brain areas involved in person addicted to internet. fMRI studies
identified that several brain areas were activated in both female and male
participants. For example, the right insula, which participate in person
arousal, bilateral premotor cortices, which prepare organism for reward, and right
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for changes in behavior
and reward maximization, were activated in the 22 healthy participants. [Hoeft
et al.] All participants were involved in online gaming. In addition, further
research identified that in gamers, who plays World of Warcraft more than 30 hours per week, have high craving for
online gaming. On the other hand high craving for that online gaming was
correlated with increased activity of the anterior cingulate cortex. The
anterior cingulate cortex involved in reward anticipation, emotion and decision
making. EEG identified that internet
addicted individuals have a longer reaction time that normal individual [Dong
et al]. SPECT and PET neuroimaging techniques identified with decreased
availability of dopaminergic receptors in brain region called striata. In
overall, neuroimaging studies identified that internet addiction associated
with dopaminergic activity and reward centers. In addition, internet addiction
can be associated with several psychological disorders. According to Ko et al.,
attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) can be associated with internet
addiction. Bernardi and Pallanti found that 14 % of internet addicted adults
have ADHD. Children has even higher statistics, when 7 out 12 addicted children
have ADHD. People who suffer from ADHD become easily bored and can’t focus
attention. In addition, Ha et al., found that in Korea people have association
between internet addition and depression. Depression on the other hand can lead
to suicidal thoughts. Ko and colleagues identified that people with depression
for more than two-year period more likely to develop internet addiction.
According to Bernard and Pallanti, 15% of internet addicted individuals have
social anxiety disorder. Societal anxiety disorders associates with alienation
from the family and school, and with fear to communicate with people face to
face. In media, I often can find debates about hostility and gaming. In truth
no causal relationship could be found. Hostility can be result of rejection and
alienation from society, but internet addiction is a consequence of alienation.
Kimberley stated that internet addiction can be compared to gambling for
several reasons. First of all, addicted people stay longer on-line than
initially planned. Then, people may risk job, educational opportunities and
relationship for internet only. Person become depressed and moody, if internet
cut down from them. The same signs and
symptoms of control difficulties can be found in pathological gambling.
Moreover, like in alcohol consumption addicted person may hide episodes of
internet usage. Online world can provide alternative for
everything that addicted person left in real life. Like virtual money in game
or on-line relationship with people all around the world.
From the finding above
it can be concluded that after excessive internet usage can effect on the brain
structure. Main changes involved dopaminegertic receptors. Dopamine receptors
in individual addicted to internet decrease over time. I will not mention the
exact mechanism, but decreased number of receptors requires more dopamine for
activation than from the first activation. Which means that for the first time
person need less alcohol to achieve the same pleasure, than for the 10th
or 20th exposure to the alcohol. The same works for internet. Addicted
person needs more and more online time than initially. Addicted person loose
sense of time and get a lot of dopamine. Actually, user become 100%
concentrated on the internet. Then, user inter the flow state, where he or she
loose sense of time and space, an even if person have important issues to do in
the real life user do not care about anything. Internet addiction can be
associated with different psychological diseases, such as depression. However,
association between depression and internet addiction do not mean causal
relationship. Internet addiction do not cause depression and depression do not
cause internet addiction. During the depression, person need social support and
control of situation. Internet on the other hand can provide depressed individual
with control of the virtual world. Virtual world can also provide people with
social support via chats and specialized sites. Virtual world can be used to
escape reality and repress unconscious thoughts. Another question is socially
withdrawn people like hikikamory, who do not communicate with outside world. Internet
provide opportunity for those people to live a normal life, to buy food to
communicate with people without face to face contact and earn money from home.
Internet also provides social support for people. However, if social phobia do
not disappear after time, person may become heavily dependent on the internet.
Moreover, people with ADHD get easily bored and can’t focus attention. Internet
provide for those individual different entertainments, such as YouTube, and
different sites so they can easily change their attention. People with ADHD
become dependent on internet for all possibilities and internet on the other
hand reinforce symptoms of ADHD. From the information mentioned above, it can
be concluded that internet addiction do not cause different psychological
disorders, but disorders may predispose people to internet addiction. Treating
disorders can benefit severity of internet addiction. The internet is easy way
to escape reality and cope with social and emotional difficulties. This kind of
coping strategy may lead to addiction. Internet dependent individual like
gambling player may have severe problem in real life. For example, financial difficulties,
worsened relationship with family members. This all can be result of
uncontrollable internet usage. Internet addiction is not just disease, is a
behavior that can be caused by another problems. It can effect on the people
around people and can effect whole countries. People who heavily dependent on
internet may develop attention seeking. It can be explained by simple behavior.
For example, well known Pavlov dog who was trained to salivate to the bell ring
before exposure to the food. By the same mechanism internet can modify the
behavior of the internet addicted individual. For example, user post something
what people do not like and get “dislikes”, user stops do that kind of post. So
dislike in that case is punishment which modifies behavior. On the “likes”
reinforce behavior, and heavily dependent person may modify his or her behavior
by internet preferences. In one book I read that we are generations of observers.
We observe constantly and everything, in YouTube or social networks.
Observation is part of our entity life and it is a nature processes. Our brain
make it possible to learn for the environment from observation by the help of
mirror neurons. Have you eve noticed? when someone hurt himself in YouTube, you
literally feel his pain, or if someone lough a lot, you start to lough too. It
is when your mirror neurons works. Social networks such as Facebook allows us
to learn from others and modify our behavior. For example, I can see picture of
the movie star started some viral picture, such as selfie on the hands. Then,
people try to make the same picture over and over. Actually selfie become more
popular recent years, because people started to modify their behavior after internet
become flooded with that photos. By the same principle person addicted to the
internet may constantly modify his or her behavior. From that point I can bring
this discussion to different pathways. If we will examine the live of person in
the developed or developing countries, it can be notes that internet become part
of our daily life. Internet become real entity from the virtual. We all think,
obsessed and we love internet for all possibilities it give to us.
Possibilities in education, job and entertainment. For example, daily job of
many employees can start from mail checking. Student is required to check
moodle regularly for assignments and lectures. Even school in Kazakhstan now
has their own web sites. Inevitably, that kind of site checks set our behavior
and it becomes daily routine. Everyone think that it is normal to surf in the
internet in free time. If we will closely identify addiction symptoms, we will
find that it includes societal sacrifices, obsession, and risks taking for
using internet, withdrawal symptoms, when internet level become less than
required. All of those symptoms can be observed in the individual in modern
era. Internet addiction is not just disease, we biologically predisposed to
observe through internet and it becomes part of our life. Consequently,
observations made in the internet, not only video but any biased opinion of
other writer, can shape our behavior.
In conclusion, I
discussed how internet can change the brain structure of the individual
addicted to the internet. It was found that it affect to the dopominegertic
receptor and different reward centers. Basically, internet can affect to own
brain through the same mechanism as any drug and alcohol. It can explain why in
other papers I found that people addicted to drugs, alcohol and internet has
almost the same symptoms. In addition, association between psychological
disorders and internet addiction was made. Sometimes internet can reinforce
behavior of psychologically ill individual, but it is also possible that
individual can psychological symptoms (behavior) can lead to internet
addiction. Finally, internet addiction is part of our daily life and we
constantly using it. So, internet can easily change our behavior, because we
biologically predisposed to learn from internet observation.
Reference:
Daria and Mark, brain sci.Internet and Gaming Addiction:
A Systematic Literature Review of Neuroimaging Studies, 2012
Ko et al., european psychiatry, The association between Internet addiction and psychiatric
disorder: A review of the literature, 2010
Kimberly et al., cyberpsychology and behacior, Internet
Addiction:The Emergence of a New Clinical Disorder, 1998
Andy Furlong, sociological reviewThe Japanese hikikomori phenomenon: acute social
withdrawal among young people 2008
Dong, G.; Zhou, H.;
Zhao, X. Male Internet addicts show impaired executive control ability:
Evidence from a color-word Stroop task. Neurosci. Lett. 2011, 499, 114–118
Hoeft, F.; Watson,
C.L.; Kesler, S.R.; Bettinger, K.E.; Reiss, A.L. Gender differences in the
mesocorticolimbic system during computer game-play. J. Psychiatr. Res. 2008,
42, 253–258.
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