There is some criticism that when researchers discuss Internet Abuse (or addiction), they are referring to every application on the internet (generalized internet abuse) or abuse of a specific application (e.g., online gambling or gaming referred to as specific internet abuse). Some argue that specific internet abuse should be considered as “technologically enabled variants of other pathologies” such as pathological gambling or sexual compulsivity whereas generalized internet abuse is using the internet as a whole in ways that disrupt the person’s life and social relationships.
The issue here, as I see it, is that most researchers do not distinguish between these two very different forms of internet addiction. If researchers do NOT distinguish between these two forms of internet addiction, how might that affect how good their research findings are? Research is supposed to get at the “truth” of a relationship. But if they are not even studying the same “problem,” how might that affect the results of their studies. You might want to start by defining for yourself what Specific vs. Generalized Internet Abuse is and how the “abusers” could be different.
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I agree that researchers should distinguish between specific and general internet abuse. General for me would be when a person simply sits in front of a screen for hours participating in a range of different internet activities. It may cause social problems in regards to time management and other aspects of the person's life. Specific abuse would deal more with a person participating in only one or a limited number of activities on the internet. I agree that research should make this distinction when doing research in order better explain the subject of internet abuse.
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