MASARYK UNIVERSITY
Faculty of Social Science
Department of Psychology

M. A. Petra Vondráčková
ADDICTIVE BEHAVIOUR ON THE INTERNET
Thesis

Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. David Šmahel, M.Sc. et Ph.D.

Brno
2012

I declare that I have written this thesis independently and all cited resources have been listed in the references.

Praha 20 November, 2012 Petra Vondráčková

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor David Šmahel for his invaluable help and guidance, and also for the opportunity to get the valuable experience in doing the research in psychology. Many thanks also to my colleague Jaroslav Vacek for inspiring discussions that we have had on this topic. I would also like to thank the co-authors of presented texts. In addition, special thanks are due to the people who were willing to participate and shared their own experience with Internet use and addictive behaviour on the Internet.

Content

1. Introduction 8 2. Theoretical background 10 2.1. Behavioural addiction 10 2.1.1. Defining the concept 11 2.1.2. Classification of behaviour addictions 12 2.1.3. Behavioural addiction in the context of diagnostic manuals of mental disorders 13 2.1.4. Similar traits of behavioural and substance addictions 15 2.2. Internet addiction 24 2.2.1. Historical background and main research areas 26 2.2.3. Identification of Internet addiction 28 2.2.4. Prevalence rates of Internet addiction 32 2.2.5. Correlates of Internet Addiction 35 2.2.6. Treatment of Internet addiction 37 2.2.7. Future research directions 39 3. Comparing Addictive Behaviour on the Internet in the Czech Republic, Chile and Sweden 51 3.1. Introduction 51 3.2. Country profiles 53 3.3. Methods 54 3.4. Sample description 56 3.5. Two dimensions of addictive behaviour on the Internet: comparing Chile, the Czech Republic and Sweden 60 3.6.