INTERNET ADDICTION DISORDER (IAD) AS A PARADIGM OF LACK OF SECURITY CULTURE

Abstract

For about 30 years since its creation, the Internet became an inseparable part of everyday life and reality. The exponential growth of this all-reaching network brought tremendous benefits to human civilization. Still, it spread and diversified so much that it is being used by 4,5 billion people, which is about 60% of the human population. The complexity of the digital world is such that it became satisfactory, or even preferred reality in contrast to the one we live in. In extreme cases, people form a pathological connection to that digital reality, whose attributes are similar to the referent ones for traditional addictions disorders. Although there is no scientific consensus about whether excessive use of the Internet is a psychological disorder that can be categorized as an addiction disease, the problem of excessive use of digital content exists. It leaves consequences both on the individual suffering from the problem and the social systems. Diversification of the Internet generated numerous subcategories of pathological relationship to Internet content, different in the object of pathological relationship and the age group, out of which the authors in this paper analyzed three – online video games, social media, and Internet pornography. By the end, the authors stress the significance of Internet security culture awareness as a preventative factor for the development of an addictive relationship to online digital content.