Young (2007) Cognitive Behavioral therapy with internet Addicts Flashcards
Background to the study
Internet addiction has only been recently seen as a health problem which means there is little known about how to treat it. Kimberly Young had seen cognitive behavioural therapy used for many different addictions and she wanted to see if it was effective for those with an internet addiction.
Aim
To see how effective cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) would be for those suffering with an internet addiction
Procedure
A group of 114 were recruited from the centre for online addiction.
All the participants were shown to have an internet addiction and they were all given a course of online CBT sessions.
The first sessions focused on finding information about the participant such as when their symptoms started
The next sessions help the client to develop skills to treat the symptoms for example using different strategies to reduce the amount of time spent online.
Participants filled out a questionnaire after the 3rd, 8th and 12th sessions along with one 6 months after the CBT was done.
A Likert type scale was used to assess participants feelings and behaviour
Results
58% of males and 42% of females
61% of the participants were educated to the university level
30% of males were addicted to pornography and 30% of females were addicted to online chat rooms
The results show that over 12 weeks there was some improvement and there was no significant drop in the ratings 6 months after
Conclusion
The results show that CBT can be an effective treatment for internet addiction. It also shows that it has long term effects as 6 months after the CBT they still reported similar ratings of control.
Strengths
More encouraging than face to face CBT because they are less likely to lie
Young used standardised procedures which makes the findings more reliable
Weaknesses
Questionnaires may not be accurate as they may be over or underestimating their symptoms to fit in
