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Internet addiction is determined genetically
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Specialists from the University of Bonn, led by the author of the study, Dr. Christian Montag, argue that Internet addiction is not a figment of our imagination, but a nervous breakdown that causes an irresistible craving for wandering in the Internet. According to statistics, those who suffer from Internet addiction spend 32 hours a week at the computer, losing the sense of time and reality.
Over the past few years, scientists have surveyed 843 people. Their goal was to find out how much the users "got confused" in the World Wide Web.
It turned out that 132 men and women develop problematic relations with the Internet. Online communication completely replaced their real life, their thoughts during the day do not cease to revolve around the Internet, and if they suddenly have to spend some time without access to the network, their state of health worsens significantly. In addition, there is a partial or complete rejection of direct contacts in the family and society.
In Internet-dependent people, there are more often genetic changes, called variation in the number of copies of genes. In addition, it turned out that people who suffer from Internet addiction are more likely than others to have a gene mutation that can cause nicotine addiction. It is likely that the dependence on the Internet and on cigarettes is of a similar nature.
"We know about the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor in the brain that mutations in its gene lead to behavioral disorders and change a person's mental state, after which a fact of physical and mental dependence is documented," Dr. Montag explains. "Nicotine from tobacco, like the acetylcholine produced by our body, is a kind of key to this receptor." The doctor concludes that Internet addiction has the same nature as nicotine.
The female organism is more often exposed to this mutation, respectively, and the Internet dependence in the representatives of the weaker sex is more pronounced.
However, this statement should be supported by further more detailed studies in this area, because most of the previous studies of this problem have proved the opposite. The results of earlier studies revealed a greater dependence on the Internet for men than for women.
Also Dr. Montag believes that in the course of studying the nature of Internet addiction, a certain subgroup of Internet addicts, namely those dependent on social networks, can stand out.
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