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Published in: AI & SOCIETY 1/2020

25-07-2018 | Open Forum

Is it possible to cure Internet addiction with the Internet?

Authors: William Liu, Farhaan Mirza, Ajit Narayanan, Seng Souligna

Published in: AI & SOCIETY | Issue 1/2020

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Abstract

Significant technological advancements over the last two decades have led to enhanced accessibility to computing devices and the Internet. Our society is experiencing an ever-growing integration of the Internet into everyday lives, and this has transformed the way we obtain and exchange information, communicate and interact with one another as well as conduct business. However, the term ‘Internet addiction’ (IA) has emerged from problematic and excessive Internet usage which leads to the development of addictive cyber-behaviours, causing health and social problems. The most commonly used intervention treatments such as motivational interviewing, cognitive-behavioural therapy, and retreat or inpatient care mix a variety of psychotherapy theories to treat such addictive behaviour and try to address underlying psychosocial issues that are often coexistent with IA, but the efficacy of these approaches is not yet proved. The aim of this paper is to address the question of whether it is possible to cure IA with the Internet. After detailing the current state-of-the-art including various IA definitions, risk factors, assessment methods and IA treatments, we outline the main research challenges that need to be solved. Moreover, we propose an Internet-based IA Recovery Framework (IARF) which uses AI to closely observe, visualize and analyse patient’s Internet usage behaviour for possible staged intervention. The proposal to use smart Internet-based systems to control IA can be expected to be controversial. This paper is intended to stimulate further discussion and research in IA recovery through Internet-based frameworks.

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Metadata
Title
Is it possible to cure Internet addiction with the Internet?
Authors
William Liu
Farhaan Mirza
Ajit Narayanan
Seng Souligna
Publication date
25-07-2018
Publisher
Springer London
Published in
AI & SOCIETY / Issue 1/2020
Print ISSN: 0951-5666
Electronic ISSN: 1435-5655
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-018-0858-0

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