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Why do so many people lose control over their internet use? While age limits for social media are being debated, many adults also spend hours online every day. For some, this becomes a burden, affecting mental health, daily life and relationships. A new study led by Professor Matthias Brand (University of Duisburg-Essen) now sheds light on why it is so difficult to disengage from the screen.
The study focuses on what is known as problematic usage of internet. This does not refer to “the internet as such”, but to excessive gaming, intensive use of social media, online shopping or the consumption of pornography.
Why many people play for hours or scroll endlessly through feeds is explained by the I-PACE model, developed by Brand at the University of Duisburg-Essen. The model is well established in addiction research, but until now had not been fully validated empirically. That has now been achieved: the findings, published in Comprehensive Psychiatry, answer a key question posed by the DFG research group FOR 2974, for which Brand is spokesperson.
For the study, 819 participants (average age around 27, approximately 45 percent women) were examined extensively in a laboratory setting, using clinical interviews, questionnaires and computer-based tests (lasting around five hours). Participants responded to specific stimuli and were required to deliberately inhibit others. Such tasks measure impulse control objectively and show how strongly internet-related cues affect behaviour.
This globally unique dataset confirms the model: three mechanisms drive problematic usage. First, the desire to feel better or less bad (“feels better”), for instance through reward or distraction. Second, a growing inner compulsion to go online (“must do”). Third, a diminished ability to stop the behaviour (“can’t stop”). These processes interact and even predict how symptoms develop over a six-month period.
“We were able, for the first time, to demonstrate empirically that these three pathways work together,” says Brand. The crucial factor, he explains, is the interplay between emotions, habits and self-control. This is also relevant for the EU Horizon project BootStRaP on internet use among adolescents, in which Brand leads the work package on assessment and psychological mechanisms.
The findings have practical implications: prevention and treatment could be targeted more precisely if it is clear which mechanisms dominate in an individual case. “That is why we also published the results in the journal Comprehensive Psychiatry,” Brand explains. “The journal is aimed at a broad readership of clinicians, is open access, and the article appears in a special issue on problematic usage of the internet, which increases its dissemination. It also gave us sufficient space to document the study comprehensively and transparently in line with the principles of open science.”
Professor Matthias Brand, Cognitive Psychology/Faculty of Computer Science, and Center for Behavioral Addiction Research (CeBAR)/Faculty of Medicine, matthias.brand@uni-due.de
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0010440X26000362
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