Family and Internet Addiction: Reality and Challenges An Analytical Study

Abstract

Internet addiction, which has become a global social problem, can generally be considered as a person’s inability to control the use of the Internet and defined in a way that entails negative consequences in the user’s daily life. Although only Internet gaming addiction is listed in the appendix to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), it has long been argued that Internet addiction includes problematic use of other Internet applications It turns into a behavioral addiction. The aim of this article is to highlight the role and importance of the family in coping with Internet addiction. Obviously, to achieve the goal of the research, the analytical method was adopted based on the academic approach.

Weak love relationships and lack of feelings between family members affect the increase of Internet addiction. Creating a gap in love and parental indifference is a major reason for the increase in addiction. To fill the gap in feelings and love, the individual is forced to resort to using the Internet more. In this way, family members can easily find a person of the opposite sex and fill this feeling and love that they did not receive from their family outside the family and without their knowledge. We conclude in this study that the family has a major role in confronting the effects of Internet use, reducing them, and preventing addiction, because family intervention becomes part of solving individual problems, as the family can educate its members about addiction to reduce Internet addiction and facilitate their return to normal healthy family life.