The Spread of the Internet
The origins of the internet date back to 1969, when the US agency ARPA (Advanced Research Project Agency) came up with the idea of connecting computers at research centers. January 1, 1983 is recorded as the official date of the internet's creation. In 1984, the internet was part of the American and British academic environment. In 1990, the strategy for internet use changed and it began to be used for commercial purposes (Leiner et al., 1997). In 1998, more than 36 million computers worldwide were connected to the internet. In 2000, it was more than 1 billion devices. Currently, more than 30 billion devices are connected to the internet.
When we compare Figures 1 and 2, which show the proportion of the population using the internet in individual countries in 1996 (the first mention of internet addiction) and 2022 (the last relatively complete data according to the cited source), we see that the interconnection of computers/devices in the internet network happened extremely quickly. Opponents of technology use would probably say that it spreads like a virus. The conclusions emerging from surveys and studies confirm some concerning trends.
Figure 1 Proportion of the population using the internet in 1996
Source: World Bank Group (2025); unedited
Figure 2 Proportion of the population using the internet in 2022
Source: World Bank Group (2025); unedited
Time Spent on the Internet
According to the Digital 2023 report, we spend an average of more than 6 and a half hours per day online globally, of which 2 and a half hours on social networks and 1 and a quarter hours playing games. More than 92% of people are permanently online via mobile phone. According to the Statista platform (2025), people report that they most often (always more than 50%) spend time online searching for information, maintaining contact with family and friends, following news, watching videos and tutorials on how to do something.
According to the EU Kids Online 2020 report (Šmahel et al., 2020), children aged 9 to 16 spend an average of 167 minutes on the internet. In the Slovak Republic it is 145 minutes and in the Czech Republic 134. The most commonly used device connected to the internet is the smartphone. Eighty percent of adolescents in Europe aged 15 and 16 use it daily. In Slovakia it is 56% and in the Czech Republic 88%.
With the enormous increase in devices connected to the internet and the financial resources invested in internet and communication technologies (amounting to trillions of dollars), it was necessary to anticipate that the commercial use of the internet would, under specific conditions and in specific situations, turn into abuse and a large number of people would become addicted to the internet or to activities tied to it.
Pathological Internet Use
As early as 1996, Young pointed out the risk of internet addiction as a clinical syndrome, deriving its diagnostic criteria from the criteria related to pathological gambling as defined in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, 4th revision DSM-IV (Young, 1998). They became the basis for the diagnosis of internet addiction.
Internet Addiction Disorder still does not appear as a separate nosological unit in the DSM-5 and ICD-11 classification systems. However, it has its symptoms, which include:
- internet overload;
- withdrawal symptoms;
- increasing tolerance;
- unsuccessful attempts to control internet use;
- continued excessive internet use despite knowledge of negative psychosocial problems;
- loss of interests, previous hobbies, entertainment due to internet use;
- use of the internet to escape or alleviate dysphoric mood;
- deceiving family members, therapists, or others (Tao et al., 2010).
The meta-analysis by Meng et al. (2022) led to estimates of the prevalence of individual types of addictions. The estimates were as follows: 26.99% (95% CI, 22.73 – 31.73) for smartphone addiction, 17.42% (95% CI, 12.42 – 23.89) for social media addiction, 14.22% (95% CI, 12.90 – 15.65) for internet addiction, 8.23% (95% CI, 5.75 – 11.66) for cybersex addiction, and 6.04% (95% CI, 4.80 – 7.57) for gaming addiction.
The expansion of available internet content (social networks, shopping, news, cybersex, e-sports, online gaming, etc.) led to the need to distinguish specific and generalized addictions tied to the internet (Davis, 2001).
Specific pathological internet use (SPIU) concerns people who are addicted to a specific function of the internet. Clinical and media records include excessive use (abuse) of online sexual material/services, online auction services, online stock trading, and online gambling. These addictions are content-specific and would exist even without the internet. However, the internet facilitates them. Specific internet addiction is tied to activities originally unrelated to the internet environment. There can be relatively many of them. The most common are addiction to virtual sexuality, addiction to virtual relationships, internet compulsions (trading, shopping), information overload, computer addiction (gaming) (Young, 2004). This classification is also confirmed by the analytical study by Müller et al. (2022), which led to the development of the diagnostic tool Assessment of Criteria for Specific Internet-use Disorders (ACSID-11).
Generalized pathological internet use (GPIU) is a general multidimensional excessive use of the internet. It includes wasting time online without a clear goal. GPIU may be associated with online chat and email addiction. It is assumed to be related to the social aspect of the internet. The need for social contact and reinforcement obtained online leads to a desire to remain in virtual social life. Generalized internet addiction therefore concerns the need to avoid feelings of loneliness and to affirm one's social value through online means.
The paradox of excessive internet use is that through it we seek to develop the human natural desire for relationships and closeness. However, as several sources point out (e.g., Koukolík (2016, 2024) or the American Academy of Pediatrics (2016, 2022)), overuse of technology and the internet from early childhood results in destructive changes in brain biophysiology and biochemistry. Neural networks responsible for mentalization, empathy, mirroring, and the self-referential neural network develop poorly, thereby causing us as humans to lose specific expressions of our humanity in terms of social sensitivity or self-knowledge.
Models Explaining Internet Addiction
There are several models that explain internet addiction. The most frequently cited are the biological, cognitive-behavioral, component model, and the I-PACE model. The biological model (based on findings from neuroscience and results of neuroimaging studies; current review e.g., Weinstein & Lejoyeux, 2020) focuses on symptoms such as impulsivity, craving, reduced dopamine activity. It explains internet addiction through changes in brain gray matter and increased activity in other brain areas.
The cognitive-behavioral model (Davis, 2001) focuses on cognitive, especially obsessive, thoughts. It distinguishes distal and proximal causes of internet addiction, which we identified above as specific and generalized internet addiction. The component model (Griffiths, 2005) focuses, as the name suggests, on the components of addiction, which include salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, conflict, relapse. Internet addiction is characterized through the fulfillment of these components.
The I-PACE model (An Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution; Brand et al. (2016)) overcomes the problems of previous models while integrating many of their advantages.
The I-PACE Model
The integrative I-PACE model offers a comprehensive answer to the question of which people are more predisposed to become addicted to substances or processes. The basic components of internet addiction were identified as (1) predisposing factors, (2) affective and cognitive responses, (3) executive inhibitory control, (4) decision-making, and (5) consequences related to internet use. In the revised version, the authorial team (Brand et al., 2019) distinguishes (1) contextual variables, (2) person reactions, and (3) consequences of internet addiction, which are interrelated. Contextual variables include the possibility of obtaining a reward, intermittent reinforcement (as the most effective schedule of operant conditioning), availability (of technologies and applications), and affordability (e.g., decreasing device prices, free applications). Person reactions include specific behavior, reward experience, feelings of pleasure and reduction of negative mood, development of cue reactivity, development of implicit cognitions, and changes in expectancies. The consequences are neural adaptation, development of habits, and the urge to continue addictive behavior despite negative consequences for everyday life.
Let us try to apply the I-PACE model to explain addictive behavior related to virtual social relationships (according to the schema in Figure 3). Every person, even a person with an addiction, has some core characteristics (through which we can describe and characterize them) that are influenced by many variables. According to the I-PACE model, these primarily concern the relationship with biopsychological constitutions tied to genetic factors (what we inherited as potential from our parents). Furthermore, there are childhood experiences, especially in terms of the ability to rely on parents when the child needs them and to receive an emotional response to their current situation. Last but not least, there is vulnerability to stress, which is often referred to as a lack of resilience, i.e., the body's resistance to adverse influences.
Important relationships in the I-PACE model are those between core characteristics and personality traits. People who tend to behave addictively are characterized by impulsivity (their behavior follows no goal), low self-esteem, which primarily results from devaluing parent-child relationships, and poorly developed conscientiousness, which concerns qualities such as the tendency to complete tasks or overcome obstacles.
Personality disposition also affects the process of social cognition. People at risk of addiction usually feel lonely and perceive weak social support from their surroundings. A consequence of distorted perception of one's own worth is an insufficiently broad social network of people they could rely on. Experiences with other people often lead them to generalized distrust.
All the characteristics mentioned so far may also contribute to the presence of manifestations of psychopathology. In people with addiction, we can more frequently identify depressive experiences, anxious experiences, especially a tendency toward social anxiety, and problems with directing attention or achieving goals, which are typical of ADHD.
All these core characteristics of a person, which represent their personal experience, are reflected in the way a person perceives reality and how they interpret it. The context described above of childhood experiences, genetic predispositions, personality factors, social experiences and social competence, presence of pathological conditions, as well as motivation for internet use, provides a framework for explaining why some people become addicted to the internet and others do not.
A person at risk of addiction perceives stress, external conflicts, and negative mood very intensely, while having a tendency to get rid of these problems. They seek some stimuli, means that would help them in this situation. If they find some means that helps them reduce negative experiences, they use it repeatedly. Based on the means they use to reduce unpleasant states, their affective and cognitive responses toward the real social environment also change. So how does a person who is developing internet addiction react?
Figure 3 Integrative I-PACE model
Source: Brand et al. (2016, 255); adapted
In the case of addiction to virtual social relationships, the use of social networks, emails, chat is a means that reduces negative and unsatisfactory experiences of real relationships and compensates for the missing social network (mostly quantitatively, however, rarely qualitatively). The person seeks stimuli that will confirm that they have value in virtual relationships and are active in them. Nowadays, this is relatively easy, because every smartphone provides its user with the option to turn on notifications from various applications that offer these services. If a person receives information in this way that "others have noticed them," it helps improve their mood. At the same time, however, they constantly expect reactions from others, they crave them. Their attention is focused precisely in this direction.
Further variables also intervene in the entire process of reducing negative experience through activity on internet social networks.
Cognitive distortions that manifest as often unrealistic expectations (for example, in the form: "Everyone must like me.") and illusions, when a person incorrectly interprets incoming stimuli (for example: "Every beep of the phone means someone wants to communicate with me."). This also includes implicit associations, i.e., privately defined relationships between assumed cause and effect (for example: "When my phone doesn't beep, nobody likes me.").
At this point, we are not yet talking about addiction, and the decisive role in whether compensatory behavior becomes addictive behavior is played by coping styles for dealing with difficult situations, discomfort, conflicts. Walker (2013) defined four in relation to the response to an obstacle (in English: fight, flight, freeze, fawn). Among the historically most recent is the use of social support (fawn). In the context of social relationships, it is precisely requested social support provided face-to-face that is an effective strategy for coping with difficult situations (Mareš, 2001). The effectiveness lies in saturating the social and psychological needs of a person who does not have to use the internet to satisfy them. However, social support in addicted people, as we state above, is very low or completely absent. The remaining coping styles are the classic "fight or flight" coping styles, or freezing (freeze), i.e., doing nothing. In relation to addiction to virtual relationships, we could say that the most common coping strategy is escape from real problems into the virtual environment, which provides immediate rewards interpreted as attention, appreciation, relationship. Despite such perception, the consequence of which should be the strengthening of self-confidence in relationships, communication in the online environment for these people is not partner-like, but rather oriented toward confirming their own perceived dominant or submissive position (which is supported by clinical findings and media analyses such as "hateful" expressions, negativism and cynicism in the online environment, e.g.: Saha, Chandrasekharan & De Choudhury (2019); Schmid, Kümpel & Rieger (2024)).
Escape behavior into the virtual social world subsequently affects cognitive and affective information processing, and in people with addiction we can generally identify impaired executive functions related to self-regulation. These include, for example, the ability to plan, the ability to create, use working memory, or adapt to social norms. Deregulated behavior is typical for people with addiction. It leads them to immediate gratification of needs and seeking positive experiences at any cost.
Many people do not have satisfactory relationships in real life. They seek a substitute for them in the online environment, where they can work with their virtual identity and self-presentation. They often decide to use multiple applications focused on self-presentation and relationships in parallel (various social networks, dating applications, etc.). They seek in them a substitute for non-functioning real relationships. The less their need for social relationships is satisfied in real life, the greater the compensation they seek in the virtual environment. They devote a lot of energy to developing their relationships in the online environment. They have no control over the time they devote to this activity, which negatively affects their daily life in terms of neglecting real social interactions, career, education, household care, etc.
This creates conditions for the development of specific internet addiction, which of course requires feedback in terms of reinforcing this behavior, its stabilization and intensification. In addiction to virtual social relationships, the reinforcement is that people do find someone who accepts them in the virtual environment, who gives them positive feedback, devotes their time to them, and positively evaluates the way they present themselves in the internet environment. Of course, the entire system is complex and dependent on feedback loops that keep such a setup alive.
Conclusion
The I-PACE model integrates the cognitive, affective, and regulatory components of personality, thereby exhausting the psychological interpretive potential. Its strength in interpreting addiction to virtual relationships lies in emphasizing the substitutive nature of these relationships and the market-based conception of self-presentation (where a person loses their own uniqueness by choosing to be a marketable commodity, or by reacting only to the demands of others and not to their own; Fromm, 2020) in the internet environment.
Its application value in terms of psychological intervention lies in the possibility of identifying and modifying dysfunctional cognitive schemas and maladaptive coping strategies, strengthening executive functions (e.g., decision-making, planning), and controlling the influence of triggers of addictive behavior with the aim of reducing reactivity to them.
In relation to building multidisciplinary intervention teams, it opens up possibilities for supporting collaboration among various experts (from the fields of psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, social work, etc.) who are involved in addressing the problem of addictions.
The availability of the internet and social networks is an opportunity, a challenge, but also a risk for humans. Paradoxically, social networks themselves may be the greatest threat to our sociability in the future. A key place in multidisciplinary teams should therefore belong to the creators of virtual networks and products. They face the task of designing user interfaces so that engagement in the virtual world does not precede engagement in the real human world. In the area of internet addiction prevention, it is essential to strengthen parental competencies and continuously teach children to live in the real world. Only then will they be prepared for life in internet networks as well.
Authors: doc. PhDr. Michal Čerešník, PhD. Institute of General Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, Pan-European University PhDr. Miroslava Čerešníková, PhD. Institute of Romological Studies, Faculty of Social Sciences and Health Care, Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra
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