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. 2021 Jan 15;9(4):908-914.
doi: 10.1556/2006.8.2019.59.

How to overcome taxonomical problems in the study of Internet use disorders and what to do with "smartphone addiction"?

Christian Montag  1   2 , Elisa Wegmann  3 , Rayna Sariyska  1 , Zsolt Demetrovics  4 , Matthias Brand  3   5
Affiliations

How to overcome taxonomical problems in the study of Internet use disorders and what to do with "smartphone addiction"?

Christian Montag et al. J Behav Addict. .

Abstract

Aims: The present theoretical paper introduces the smartphone technology as a challenge for diagnostics in the study of Internet use disorders and reflects on the term "smartphone addiction."

Methods: Such a reflection is carried out against the background of a literature review and the inclusion of Gaming Disorder in ICD-11.

Results: We believe that it is necessary to divide research on Internet use disorder (IUD) into a mobile and non-mobile IUD branch. This is important because certain applications such as the messenger application WhatsApp have originally been developed for smartphones and enfold their power and attractiveness mainly on mobile devices.

Discussion and conclusions: Going beyond the argumentation for distinguishing between mobile and non-mobile IUD, it is of high relevance for scientists to better describe and understand what persons are actually (over-)using. This is stressed by a number of examples, explicitly targeting not only the diverse contents used in the online world, but also the exact behavior on each platform. Among others, it matters if a person is more of an active producer of content or passive consumer of social media.

Keywords: Internet addiction; Internet use disorder; problematic Internet use; problematic smartphone use; smartphone addiction; smartphone use disorder.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Dr. MB has received (to University of Duisburg-Essen) grants from the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education, the German Federal Ministry for Health, and the European Union. He has performed grant reviews for several agencies; has edited journal sections and articles; has given academic lectures in clinical or scientific venues; and has generated books or book chapters for publishers of mental health texts.

Dr. CM has received (to Ulm University and earlier University of Bonn) grants from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Federal Ministry for Research and Education. He has performed grant reviews for several agencies; has edited journal sections and articles; has given academic lectures in clinical or scientific venues or companies; and has generated books or book chapters for publishers of mental health texts. For some of these activities, he received royalties, but never from the gaming or social media industry. Finally, he mentions that he is part of a discussion circle on social media and democracy at Facebook. In this context, he receives no salary for his activities from Facebook, but his travel costs have been reimbursed.

Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
A taxonomy of Internet Use Disorders. In short, IUD can be split into a predominantly mobile and a predominantly non-mobile form, whereas both respective areas need to be additionally characterized by the kind of content (overused)
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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