Welcome to r/science! This is a heavily moderated subreddit in order to keep the discussion on science. However, we recognize that many people want to discuss how they feel the research relates to their own personal lives, so to give people a space to do that, personal anecdotes are now allowed as responses to this comment. Any anecdotal comments elsewhere in the discussion will continue to be removed and our normal comment rules still apply to other comments.

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[removed]

[removed]

[removed]

> Internet addiction, also known as “compulsive Internet use,’ ‘problematic Internet use,’ and ‘pathological Internet use’ (Zhao et al., 2022), is not officially recognized as a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association (APA; Kuss & Lopez-Fernandez, 2016). However, Internet gaming, a subcategory of Internet addiction, is formally included in the 11th version of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) by WHO in 2018 (Poznyak, 2018). Internet addiction is defined as the excessive or uncontrollable use of the Internet leading to symptoms of withdrawal and tolerance (Young, 1998). Although there are no official diagnostic criteria for Internet addiction, Young (1998) based the diagnostic criteria for Internet addiction (IA) on the extreme gambling criteria as suggested in DSM-IV. The four characteristics of addictive behaviours: excessive use, withdrawal, tolerance, and adverse psychological consequences are often found present in Internet-addicted individuals (Fumero et al., 2018).

That's a problem, because the extreme gambling criteria is irrelevant to "internet addiction"...which is not a recognized disorder. They are making it one by using the criteria that fits their need for internet addiction to exist.

Isnt gambling addiction on the internet still just gambling addiction? The issue is mostly that on the internet its very hard to regulate gambling.