Along with the monumental studies recently published by the Pew Foundation and Mimi Ito's Digital Youth Project (both funded as part of the MacArthur Foundation's field-changing Digital Media and Youth Initiative), here is a crucial new study in Cyberpsychology and Behavior that systematically debunks the myth of "internet addiction." It's about time! Here's the url: http://www.scribd.com/doc/9021320/Internet-Addiction-Metasynthesis-of-19...

This paper is called "Internet Addiction: Metasynthesis of 1996-2006 Quantitative Research" and it looks scrupulously at the methodologies of several important alarmist studies of this "addiction" to show the shoddy methods being used, the false conclusions, and the specious lines of argument throughout. The authors of the study are Professors Sookeun Byun, Celestino Ruffini, Juline E. Mills, Alecia C. Douglas, Mamadou Niang, Svetlana Stepchenkova, Seul Ki Lee, Jihad Loutfi, Jung-Kook Lee, Mikhail Atallah, Marina Blanton.

Special thanks to HASTAC'er Steve Burnett for calling this crucial study to our attention. And thanks to Flickr community member Federico Morando for posting this witty image (right out of a 40s-50's This Is Your Brain on Drugs commercial) of "internet addiction." Please click on the image for the full photostream and documentation.