Therapeutic Interventions for Treatment of Adolescent Internet Addiction—Experiences from Germany

Abstract

In this chapter, the Internet usage behaviour of the general population and the prevalence of problematic Internet use will be discussed and a variety of treatment options are introduced. Theoretically and practically, through use of a case study, the brief intervention, “Compass”, is described. The last section considers research on the efficacy of existing approaches to the treatment of problematic Internet use. To contextualize the prevalence of Internet use, the underlying concepts and the therapy, this chapter opens with a brief consideration of television and the debate about TV dependency, which took place during the 1990s. Before taking a closer look at the prevalence of Internet use, the underlying concepts and the therapy, this chapter begins with a brief recourse on television and the debate about TV dependency, which took place during the nineties of the last century. For the triumph of the Internet will possibly go hand in hand with the “death” of another medium: television, in any case, in its “classical” form (Katz and Scannell, The end of television? Its impact on the world (so far), 2009). At least with youngsters, television seems to have become less important compared with the Internet. For instance, among 12–19-year-olds, as far as frequency of media activity went, television came in third place in 2011, after the mobile phone and the Internet. Among boys, 89 % considered personal use of the Internet very important/important, while only 58 % made this statement about television. Among girls, the Internet came after “listening to music” and “mobile phone use”, in third place with 86 %, and television was in sixth place with 54 % (Medienpadagogischer Forschungsverbund Sudwest (MPFS), Jugend, Information, (Multi-)Media. Basisstudie zum Medienumgang 12- bis 19-Jahriger in Deutschland, 2012). In 2009, Internet and television were of equal importance to this age group; television may even have had a slight edge (MPFS, Jugend, Information, Multimedia. Basisstudie zum Medienumgang 12- bis 19-Jahriger in Deutschland, 2010). A note on terminology is necessary here. A key problem in looking at the phenomenon of Internet use is the veritable flood of terminology—much of which may also be used differentially; the concept “problematic Internet use (PIG)” will be consistently used in this chapter, except in the reproduction of results from studies that explicitly use a different terminology.