Internet addiction alters brain chemistry in young people, study finds | Hacker News Reader

Internet addiction alters brain chemistry in young people, study finds

theguardian.com

47 pointssandebert22 comments

The link to the study is broken. The article says that this was just a review of 12 previous studies and that fMRI showed a "decrease in the functional connectivity in parts of the brain involved in active thinking" in teens who had been diagnosed with internet addiction, but is that caused by internet addiction or are people who already have fewer connections to those parts of the brain more likely to exhibit behaviors that meet whatever the criteria for a diagnosis of internet addiction even is.

When was internet addiction even recognized as an actual disorder? It really wouldn't surprise me if people who have executive function issues end up being easily distracted by the devices designed to do exactly that.

> The link to the study is broken

Correct link appears to be https://journals.plos.org/mentalhealth/article?id=10.1371/jo...

Pretty much what I thought: "the studies did not provide clear evidence that IA played a causal role towards the development of the adolescent brain."

There were a ton of other limitations too ("Components of the study, such as sample sizes, effect sizes, and demographics were not weighted or controlled", all the studies coming from "China (8), Korea (3), and Indonesia (1)" which might explain how a bunch of kids got diagnosed with a condition that isn't really recognized as a disorder in the west, inconsistent terminology ("online gaming addiction, internet addiction, internet gaming disorder, and problematic internet use") without clear consensus on what those terms actually mean, etc

Limiting cell phone/social media use is probably a good idea, especially for teens, but I sure wouldn't say that anyone should panic or change their behavior based on this paper.

What doesn't alter brain chemistry? Spooky title, but no, really, the thing we've spent millions of dollars on making addictive is addictive?

Internet addiction is a dirty word for "user retention."

that's what I was thinking... stress alters brain chemistry, falling in love, eating sugar, meditation, sports, and basically anything you do

The article (and presumably the study behind the article) expands on this a bit, it just wouldn't make a click-friendly title. According to the text, Internet addiction makes young people prone to fall for other kinds of addiction and negatively affects mental health, physical coordination, intellect, memory, sleep patterns and eating, ie. all the things you don't want broken.

So they’re using the old gateway drug argument when it comes to “internet addiction”? I thought that whole thing was supposed to be bullocks

I wouldn't even know where to start to verify this or the opposite claim. Conduct a meta-meta-study?

I personally think "user retention" is a harmless sounding euphemism for induced addiction.

Only if your revenue comes from ads or a pay per play style product. There exist many services that can retain users without them needing to log in every five seconds to maintain the revenue stream.

Square vs rectangle issue here. If your product is ad supported then you definitely depend on creating addiction, but if it's not, you may still be trying to create addictions (e.g. Netflix)

It depends only on how closely your profit is tied to the amount of time the customer spends on the product.

To take Netflix for example, it's probably better for them in terms of subscription profits if your "addiction" causes you to watch one episode each month, and not use it at all the rest of the time.

Unless you have non-revenue reasons to addict people, but that's probably headed into conspiracy theory territory... :)

That said, I'm pretty sure netflix has ad revenue, so the point is kinda moot.

Right?!?

“Alters” ok? Working out “alters” my muscles.

The real question is if it is bad. And importantly. Do we consider it bad because it’s different than how we are or is it actually bad.

Oh, I think having access to content slop firehose is terrible for your attention span! No arguments there.

I am not addicted to the 'internet'. I read it for the articles.

It says something for how explosively popular social media is that an article like this can just refer to it as "the internet" and nobody questions it in a tech forum.

Would be great to trial GLP-1 agonists in cohorts facing this risk.

I am so tired of 'x rewires the brain' type stories. Yes it does. EVERYTHING changes the brain, the brain is constantly changing in response to stimuli - that's how brains work.

It's necessary to mandate oversight for internet usage by under-25s (the age when brain development stops) at the federal level. Enough is enough!

Are you being facetious or facist? I can't tell.

Me neither. I'm sending words of support, because I don't know why you're downvoted.

I assume parent's post is sarcasm, but I'm not 100% sure - I know there are people who hold similar views unironically.

The “brain devt stops at age X” is pseudoscience. Some physiological growth may stop, yes, but you can still get addicted to things at any age.

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