2016/09/06 by Matthias Brand, Kimberly Young, Christian Laier +2 · 2,038 citations
Social Sciences · Psychology · Neuroscience · #Impact of Technology on Adolescents #Sexuality, Behavior, and Technology #Digital Marketing and Social Media #Psychology #Pace #The Internet #Addiction #Cognition #Affect (linguistics) #Psychological intervention #Situational ethics #Coping (psychology) #Cognitive psychology #Clinical psychology #Social psychology #Neuroscience #Psychiatry #Computer science
paper · pdf · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2016.08.033
published in Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews 71, 252-266 (Elsevier BV)
openalex publication_date 2016/09/06 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/08
Within the last two decades, many studies have addressed the clinical phenomenon of Internet-use disorders, with a particular focus on Internet-gaming disorder. Based on previous theoretical considerations and empirical findings, we suggest an Interaction of Person-Affect-Cognition-Execution (I-PACE) model of specific Internet-use disorders. The I-PACE model is a theoretical framework for the processes underlying the development and maintenance of an addictive use of certain Internet applications or sites promoting gaming, gambling, pornography viewing, shopping, or communication. The model is composed as a process model. Specific Internet-use disorders are considered to be the consequence of interactions between predisposing factors, such as neurobiological and psychological constitutions, moderators, such as coping styles and Internet-related cognitive biases, and mediators, such as affective and cognitive responses to situational triggers in combination with reduced executive functioning. Conditioning processes may strengthen these associations within an addiction process. Although the hypotheses regarding the mechanisms underlying the development and maintenance of specific Internet-use disorders, summarized in the I-PACE model, must be further tested empirically, implications for treatment interventions are suggested.