Internet Addiction in Children and Adolescents: Risk Factors, Assessment, and Treatment

This is the first book to thoroughly examine how early and easy access to the Internet and digital technologies impacts children and adolescents. Experts in the field examine the research that shows the social, cognitive, developmental, and academic problems that can result when children spend excessive time in front of screens. As a whole, the book provides an invaluable resource for those who need to assess, treat, and prevent Internet addiction in children and adolescents.

Internet Addiction in Children and Adolescents:

• Provides tools that help predict a child's level of risk for media-related problems.
• Examines how to diagnose and differentiate Internet addiction from other psychiatric conditions.
• Explores evidence-based treatment approaches and how to distinguish pathology from normal development.
• Shows how to create inpatient treatment programs and therapies to address media addiction.
• Highlights the psychological, social, and family conditions for those most at risk.
• Evaluates the effects of the excessive use of electronic games and the Internet on brain development.
• Explores the physical risks that result from excessive media use and strategies for combating the problem.
• Examines school-based initiatives that employ policies and procedures designed to increase awareness of excessive media use and help educators identify students who misuse technology, and that provide strategies of intervention and communication with parents.
• Identifies signs of problem Internet behavior such as aggressive behavior, lying about screen use, and a preference for screen time over social interactions.
• Outlines the risk factors for developing Internet addiction.
• Provides strategies for treatment and prevention in family, school, and community settings.

Practitioners and researchers in psychology, social work, school counseling, child and family therapy, and nursing will appreciate this book's thorough review of Internet addiction among children and adolescents. The book also serves as an engaging supplement in courses on media psychology, addiction counseling, abnormal psychology, school counseling, social issues, and more.

Kimberly S. Young, PsyD, is a licensed psychologist and an internationally known expert on Internet addiction. She founded the Center for Internet Addiction in 1995 and is a professor at St. Bonaventure University.

Cristiano Nabuco de Abreu, PhD, coordinates the Internet Addicts Program of the Impulse Control Unit of the Institute of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of São Paulo.