By Levy Katz
Queens, NYC
Over the past three decades, revolutionary technologies–smartphones, laptops, and personal computers–have fundamentally transformed how humanity accesses and interacts with the internet.
Naturally, there has also been a great increase in internet usage in this time, and there has been a great proliferation of both social networks and entertainment platforms that function via the internet. This internet revolution has led to an overhaul of the way society functions and how people interact with one another.
Meetings can now be conducted remotely via a video conferencing platform; working from home has become a real possibility for so many people; get-togethers with friends and family no longer need a physical setting–because a FaceTime call can accomplish the same effect.
The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic accelerated this transformation dramatically, forcing entire societies to function this way for months and proving that digital interaction could sustain civilization itself.
However, in tandem with the proliferation of Internet usage, worrying trends in academic performance, social phobia and isolation, depression, other psychopathologies, or the natural consequences thereof, have developed among those who use the internet excessively, a population which contains an alarming amount of younger people. Investigating these effects can help families and educators battle with the effects of poor internet usage, as well as helping those already affected by such usage.
Internet, as well as smart device usage is becoming much more a part of everyday life. Case in point: 61% of people check their smartphones every morning upon waking up, according to a 2019 NIH study. In fact, this increased usage and reliance upon the Internet and smart devices (which will be grouped together under the terminology “internet” unless otherwise specified for the remainder of the paper), has turned into an addiction for a large number of people, and the number of people addicted to the internet only grows with each year.
In a 2010 review titled “Internet Addiction or Excessive Internet Use,” it was found that 1.5%-8.2% of people in America and Europe were addicted to the internet–and that was before the launch of social media such as Instagram and Tiktok, which have highly addictive content-feeding algorithms. These surveys were also conducted well before the entirety of society was made to be locked up in their homes, essentially glued to their screens day and night for several months on end. As a result, researchers in 2025 estimate that about 210 million people worldwide are affected by internet and social media addiction.
Additionally, besides a general addiction to internet usage, with the advent of the smartphone, a device which has made increasing inroads into all of our pockets in the past 15 years, a separate disorder has developed. That being “Nomophobia,” which stands for No Mobile Phone Phobia, and it is primarily an anxiety of being detached from smartphone connectivity (this is also the title of the 2019 NIH study).
Essentially, in tandem with, though not necessarily intrinsic to, an addiction to internet usage, an anxious feeling when one does not have their smart device may develop, possibly due to a constant anticipation of notifications from apps and friends. To this effect, a study found that 38.5% of students in an Indian medical school repeatedly checked their phones for notifications throughout the day. Additionally, 20% of these students reported that they became stressed when their phones were dead or not with them, and 56% of them said they felt more secure when their phones were on them, as compared to otherwise.
Though the above study was conducted in India, it is clear that excessive internet usage is having the same, if not worse, effects on us in the United States. As is evident from the above data, excessive and problematic internet usage is becoming a problem which only grows worse as time goes on.
Unfortunately, much of the population affected by excessive internet usage is young. As of 2025, researchers found that teenagers use their screens for 7 hours and 22 minutes a day, on average, and kids between 8 and 12 spend almost 5 hours a day on social media, as per an AddictionHelp.com study. These numbers show that there is an increasing problem with excessive usage of the internet among younger people, even if it is not necessarily causing psychological issues. Much of this time on the internet is spent on social media platforms. These platforms generally encourage endless scrolling, instant gratification, as well as comparing oneself with others, which, while not necessarily bad, may have negative effects on mental health when practiced unhealthily.
The Pew Research Center, in 2015, found that at least 92% of teenagers were active social media users, and other research has estimated that out of the over 33 million Americans addicted to social media, 40% are between the ages 18-22. These numbers, while staggering, are not so unexpected, due to the fact that social media is constructed in a way to hook people into instant gratification cycles and “doomscrolling”, the practice of endlessly scrolling through short form content until the algorithm spits out something engaging.
When these behaviors are introduced to developing minds, they may «rewire» the brain to depend on these stimuli, ultimately spawning addiction–a phenomenon documented in a 2007 study from the Journal of Adolescent Health. As will be apparent further in the paper, conditions such as ADHD have a very high comorbidity rate with internet addiction, precisely because of the dopamine imbalances present in those with ADHD, which attracts the patient to repeated short term stimulation, such as that present with social media usage, though the numbers clearly show that this addiction extends beyond those with ADHD alone. It is also possible that certain ADHD symptoms may be result from this brain rewiring caused by internet addiction, though insufficient evidence exists to support this conclusion.
The consequences of excessive internet usage are not confined to addictive behaviors and lost time, however. This lost time and concentration contributes to a decline in academic performance among students. A 2022 study involving Ontario Public High School students found that students with moderate to severe symptoms of problematic technology use, which accounted for around 19% of the tested population, experienced lower academic performance. In fact, just using technology for more than five hours a day, without other symptoms of problematic technology use, was associated with lower academic performance.
Another study conducted upon two middle school classes, one of which was given instruction in an internet classroom and the other in a regular classroom, found that although the internet group was much more enthusiastic about the learning, it had trouble with certain reading comprehension skills, and kids were more distracted and ran into technical issues, including wasting class time on chatting.
The study did not come out against the use of the internet in classrooms, and it was admitted that the tested group, 8th graders, are more prone to distraction than older or younger groups, but nevertheless, internet usage turned out to have negative effects on the students.
That said, negative academic outcomes because of internet usage are not just confined to younger students. A 2021 study conducted in an Indian medical school found that students who performed worse academically also tended to spend more time using social media. This is possibly because social media can be a distraction from academics, which, coupled with its addictive properties, is a sure way of beating students off course, thereby causing them to score lower than those who used social media in a more restrained fashion. These findings highlight that the phenomenon of younger people spending increasing amounts of time on the internet is having a tangibly negative impact on their academic life.
Although possibly less tangible than lower academic performance, internet and social media usage is, quite paradoxically, taking a toll on people’s social involvement.
Though being, admittedly, archaic data when it comes to research surrounding the topic at hand, a 1998 longitudinal study published by American Psychologist found that, despite being mainly a medium for communication, increased internet usage tightens the user’s social circle, and increases their loneliness.
Along these lines, in 2007, Journal of Adolescent Health researchers found that adolescents with internet addiction had higher social phobia and hostility levels, and a 2020 review of literature on this topic found that social anxiety was also associated with internet addiction. Similarly, a 2012 Pyschopathology review of the literature found that 66% of the reviewed studies reported significant correlations between Problematic Internet Usage and hostility and/or aggression, and 57% reported correlations between PIU and anxiety, though none of the studies reviewed found a significant correlation between PIU and social phobia.
Regardless, it seems excessive internet usage is inextricably linked to higher levels of hostility, which makes sense, as somebody who is on the internet for much of the day will perforce have dwindling amount of real-life interactions, causing them to possibly exhibit more base and raw emotions and attitudes when a real-life interaction does come up.
It is interesting to note that in tandem with the increase in internet usage, there has been a veritable increase in familial estrangement, with approximately 25% of adults having severed relationships with their parents, according to a 2022 Journal of Marriage and Family study. Although many factors are responsible for this increase in familial alienation in recent years, it is possible that the mandated quarantine during the COVID-19 pandemic had the residual effect of causing everyone to use the internet as the primary mode of communication. This, in turn, may have caused people to, subconsciously, view their relationships as more distant and superficial, thereby turning them into a disposable commodity as opposed to a priceless treasure, according to Dr. Norman Blumenthal’s 2025 study published in YUTorah Online. These findings demonstrate the socially destructive nature of excessive internet usage, and the widespread damage this has afflicted on our society.
Most troubling of all, the increased usage of the internet in our society and the world is linked with increased depression. It is clear from the majority of studies that internet addiction has a high comorbidity with depression, as well as ADHD.
In fact, 75% of studies reviewed in a 2012 review of the scientific literature on internet use and psychopathology showed a significant correlation between depression and Problematic Internet Usage; the correlation of PIU and ADHD symptoms was apparent in 100% of the aforementioned studies. Similarly, as mentioned above, ADHD seems to “set up” the patient for internet addiction, as the disorder causes higher sensitivity to reward, and it make it harder to control oneself in the face of an accessible dopamine “fix”, such as scrolling through a social media feed.
As regards depression, it is possible that the high comorbidity with internet addiction is explained by the ability of the internet, specifically social media, to allow one to create a virtual self, into which one can escape from all one’s troubles, possibly temporarily assuaging their depressive mood. However, this kind of behavior could very easily lead to addiction, as the depressed adolescent may end up wanting to spend more and more time in their virtual self until they become dependent on this escape.
Additionally, the high comorbidity can be explained by the fact that adolescents specifically (though adults are not innocent of this either) are often using the internet late into the night, which perforce means they are sleeping less, possibly leading to insomnia and other sleep disorders in cases of internet addiction, which results in a near-constant depressive mood. In any case, this comorbidity is readily apparent and is possibly the driving factor behind the staggering rise in cases of depression in recent years.
As a society, we must pay greater attention to these psychological effects of internet addiction. We should focus on treating the depression, ADHD, and other conditions that comprise the so-called «internet addiction package», while properly educating children about the dangers of excessive internet usage and its disastrous effects on mental health and social life to address the root cause.
The increase in internet usage in contemporary life has led to a surge in internet addiction, as well as the multitude of negative consequences: reduced sleep, lower academic performance, increased social phobia and aggression, and increased depressive symptoms. To combat the increase in addiction and psychopathological consequences, we must prioritize teaching people–especially children–about the dangers of excessive internet use. Increased awareness of these issues will hopefully allow society to break from the grips of excessive internet usage, encouraging responsible internet use instead.
Levy Katz is a new contributor to the Bukharian Times. He is a student.