A new study has revealed that internet addiction is more common than people think, as 6 percent of the global population suffers from it.
It was found that the prevalence of Internet addiction varies among regions around the world, as Northern and Western Europe saw a low 2.6 percent population of internet addicts, while it was 10.9 percent in Middle East.
The authors describe factors associated with higher Internet addiction prevalence and how it relates to individuals' quality of life.
Editor-in-Chief Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB, BCN, Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California and Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium, said that the udy provides initial support for the inverse relationship between quality of life and Internet Addiction (IA).It, however, finds no support for the hypothesis that high Internet accessibility (such as the high penetration rates in Northern and Western Europe), promote IA.
The study was published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking.