Peer-Reviewed Study

Health Response to Problematic Usage of the Internet: A Global Survey on Trends, Available Treatments and Key Challenges

Feb 2026 🌐 Journal of Behavioral Addictions PEER-REVIEWED

Published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, this large international survey — coordinated through the International Society of Addiction Medicine's Global Expert Network and co-authored by Hae Kook Lee among more than 30 collaborators — asked addiction-medicine and psychiatry societies across 38 countries how their health systems respond to problematic internet use, including its gambling and gaming subtypes. Respondents most often named online gambling and gaming as the internet-use patterns causing concern, and reported that psychotherapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy, was the most widely available response. The survey also found major gaps: most respondents said their country lacks professional certification standards for addressing problematic internet use, and a large majority rated the issue as important over the coming decade. TechKids Foundation cites this as evidence that health systems worldwide, including South Korea's, remain underprepared for gaming- and internet-related harms in young people.

38 countries surveyed via ISAM-GEN society network

The global survey found online gambling and gaming were the most frequently reported problematic-internet-use subtypes; 78.9% of respondents reported lacking professional certification standards, and 65.8% rated the issue as extremely or very important over the next decade.

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CITATION

Khojasteh Zonoozi, Arash, Joe Schofield, Fateme Sadat Abolghasemi, Sophia Achab, Atul Ambekar, Henrietta Bowden-Jones, Zsolt Demetrovics, Mohsen Ebrahimi, Naomi A. Fineberg, Yasser Khazaal, Hae Kook Lee, Kristiana Siste, Dan J. Stein, Anise M. S. Wu, Mehran Zare-Bidoky, Marc N. Potenza, Alexander Mario Baldacchino, Hamed Ekhtiari, et al. "Health Response to Problematic Usage of the Internet: A Global Survey on Trends, Available Treatments and Key Challenges." Journal of Behavioral Addictions 15, no. 1 (2026): 195–208. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.2025.00106

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