Cyber addiction: a new view and approaches to diagnostics

The evolution of views on the problem of Internet addiction is presented, information is given on its prevalence and comorbidity with mental disorders, and an overview of modern clinical classifications and psychometric tools for its diagnosis is done.

According to modern scientific research, conceptual developments and the I-PACE model, the authors propose to single out a single definition of "cyber addiction" to combine all variants of Internet addiction. The selection of a single definition of "cyber addiction" is based on the fact that the object of addiction is interacting with various information resources and technical means.

For the phenomenon of cyber addiction, the authors proposed clinical diagnostic criteria, which are based on the criteria for diagnosing mental and behavioural disorders due to the use of psychoactive substances of the ICD-11 and provided characteristics of the boundary with normative behaviour when using various information resources and technical means. They developed and validated a new psychodiagnostic screening tool based on the proposed cyber addiction paradigm – the YSCAS scale (Yuryeva – Shornikov Cyberaddiction Scale).