Universities in the United States discovered a very similar behavior of the brain between a drug addict and a person who depends on the Internet.
Young people who spend a lot of time on the Internet can exhibit typical behaviors of a person with addictions.
Science and technology researchers from the University of Missouri, Duke University Medical Center, and the Duke Institute of Brain Sciences, tracked Internet use of 69 college students for more than two months.
"About 5 to 10 percent of all Internet users seem to show web dependence, and brain imaging studies show that the compulsive use of the Internet can induce changes in some reward pathways of the brain similar to those seen in addiction. to drugs, "said Dr. P. Murali Doraiswamy, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University Medical Center.
To conduct this study, students were asked to complete a 20-question survey called "the scale of Internet-related problems (IRP). The IRPS measures the level of problems that a person is having due to the use of the Internet, on a scale of 0 to 200.
This scale was developed to identify the characteristics of addiction, such as introversion, leaving studies, anxiety, tolerance and the negative consequences of life.
Common behaviors in addicts were related to some specific activities that are carried out on the Internet. For example, researchers found that introversion was closely linked to social networking games and chats; the cravings for games, the messages through different applications, the downloading of files and the loss of control of games of chance.
The team cautioned that the current study is exploratory and does not establish a medical cause-and-effect relationship between Internet use and addictive behavior.