However, there are now clues that IAD may actually deserve a solid medical explanation. Scientists at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Wuhan said that IAD "may share psychological and neural mechanisms with other types of impulse control disorders and substance addiction."
Specifically, the researchers found that an abnormal white matter structure in the brain could be an indicator for IAD. White matter in the brain accounts for about 60 percent the entire brain volume and consists of glial cells and myelinated axons, which are responsible for the signal transmission within the cerebrum, part of the forebrain, as well as the signal transmission from the cerebrum to lower brain centers.
According to the research published in the journal Plos One, 17 IAD candidates showed significantly lower fractional anisotropy "in major white matter pathways" than 16 candidates that were considered "healthy". Abnormal white matter structures are often linked to behavioral disorders, which led the researchers to believe that this may be the case for IAD as well. As a result, they also believe that fractional anisotropy could be used as a "biological marker" to determine a risk for IAD and offer ways for early intervention. In addition, the scientists believe that other white matter integrity treatments could also work for cases of Internet addiction.
i mean cant they just say online is more appealing than real life?
i mean cant they just say online is more appealing than real life?
2. The statement :
IAD "may share psychological and neural mechanisms with other types of impulse control disorders and substance addiction."
is a perfect example of "duh!". All addictions out there share a common trait, which is a positive reward feedback loop, and IAD is no different from, say, cocaine addiction in that respect. Which leads us to
3. " In addition, the scientists believe that other white matter integrity treatments could also work for cases of Internet addiction." This is so far fetched, I don't even know where to start. If addictions (see 2.) were that easy to treat, the world would be an entirely different place. First, there is no causality demonstrated between the so-called structural white matter abnormality and addictions per-se. Addictions have the object of studies for decades, and if it were that simple, we would have had a cure by now. ANY addiction. Second, the reward mechanisms involve dopamine and other neurotransmitters, and are not related anatomically, but physiologically. Those guys could have studied any addiction (like a million other researchers before them) and could have used hundreds of subjects available out there. The power of the study would have been higher, but the results likely not the ones they were looking for.
I call major BS; this is at best anecdotal report, not a study.
Totally agree with you. I can do far more over the internet than I can do in person and of course spend way less. It goes from education to entertainment ; I can do it faster! One of the precise reasons why dropped cable tv that is filled with non-stop propaganda.
/rant
Alway glad to be of service to mankind.
Great to see they can come up with a new disorder/problem so they can give themselves work, We will all have to make an appointment at docs/headshrinks right NOW!
If you were connected up to the Matrix you wouldn't want to leave either.
That's not a study, that's a waste of everyone's time.
Only if you can fly like Neo.
OTOH.. what's the qualification or rather symptoms to be considered IAD? There are more than 1001 ways to use the internet. Do the IAD candidates show withdrawal symptoms when barred access to the internet... aside of course from cursing you for not let him/her surf and/or being worried about missing something that happened to his/her fb friends.
If your family has a history of "addiction" and you're somewhat of a "techie", of course you'll get addicted to the internet. Your other siblings may become addicted to something else, unless they're strong and will resist such temptations.
if there was a matrix, and i could jack into things, such as a video game where i can die as much as i want and come back as much as i want, first thing im doing is hitting up an everquest like mmo, getting on a pvp server, and never coming out.
Using a one-way ANCOVA and assuming a large effect size (ie. ~.5), and 1 degree of freedom for between group contrast, 35 subjects will give you a power around 0.8 (this is pretty good in my book).
But I do think there are even cooler things to do than obsessively use the web. Reading this article gives new pause to how much I am online and not learning how to use new software, or practice piano or something real world. I am almost hesitant to mention that the web does offer a virtual experience with downloaded programs or online software to do things we cannot afford or there are limited resources to do so.
Dichotomy.
No offense, but I forgot what you where talking about in the middle of the paragraph.
Studies start small, if certain findings have been made they tend to expand to verify the findings of the first one. Hopefully they get funding to expand this study and parallel studies in different countries are also done to validate the findings.