Internet addiction in the United States, which primarily consists of online gambling, social media, and video games addictions, has affected people in the United States. A study done by the California State University found that 10% of Americans are addicted to social media. Douglas Gentile, a psychologist at Iowa State University, showed that 8.5% of children in the United States who play video games are addicted to them.
A survey done by the Pew Research Center found that 85% of American adults access the internet on a daily basis, of that 85%, 35% answered they go "online almost constantly", 48% said they accessed the internet almost daily, and 6% stated they accessed the internet once a day. [1]
A study published in JAMA found that half of studied children had addictive behavior with their use of mobile phones. The study also found that children who said their internet usage was addictive were at higher risk of suicide. [2]
When online sportsbooks became available in Pennsylvania, internet searches for gambling addiction help rose 61%. [3] A survey by the Siena College Research Institute and the St. Bonaventure University’s Jandoli School of Communication found that 9% of surveyed Americans who have gambled online called a gambling hotline. [4]
A study done by the California State University found that around 10% of Americans are addicted to social media. [5] There has been an association with children between frequent social media use, depression, and an increased risk of suicide. Current evidence shows that female and LGBTQ children are more susceptible to the harms of social media. [6] According to Yale Medicine, some researchers believe that social media can overstimulate the brain's reward center, and, with excessive use, can trigger pathways similar to addiction. [7]
77% of surveyed high school students reported using social media several times a day. Frequent social media use was more common with females than males, and frequent social media use was also more common with heterosexual students than gay students. [6]
In 2023, United States Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published an advisory entitled "Social Media and Youth Mental Health", which warned about the harms of social media use with regard to children's mental health. [7] In October 2025, New York City, New York and Oakland, California filed lawsuits against Meta Platforms, Alphabet, Snap, and ByteDance for their gross negligence and causing of a public nuisance with regard to social media addiction among children. [8]
Video game addiction is the inability to manage time gaming, giving gaming a higher priority than other interests and responsibilities, and constant gaming despite the negative consequences of such gaming over a year or longer. [9] Research done by Douglas Gentile, a psychologist at Iowa State University, found that around 8.5% of children in the United States who play video games are addicted. Gentile states that what addicts people to video games are autonomy, belonging, competence with video games. While Mark Griffiths states people get addicted to video games because of consistent rewards while playing the game. [10]
Some developers use psychological tricks, such as creating a world that seems better than the real one, eliminating real-world consequences for failure, guaranteeing that players would be rewarded for their efforts, and giving players purpose, to make video games difficult to quit. [11] William Siu, co-founder of Storm8, described how video game addiction was built into the design of many games to build player-habits of playing the game. [12]
In November 2001, 21-year-old Wisconsinite Shawn Woolley committed suicide; it has been inferred that his death was related to the popular computer game EverQuest . Woolley's mother said the suicide was due to a rejection or betrayal in the game from a character Woolley called "iluvyou". [13]
Ohio teenager Daniel Petric shot his parents, killing his mother, after they took away his copy of Halo 3 in October 2007. In a sentencing hearing after the teen was found guilty of aggravated murder, the judge said, "I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea at the time he hatched this plot that if he killed his parents they would be dead forever", in reference to his disconnection from reality allegedly caused by playing violent video games. [14] [15] On 16 June 2009, Petric was sentenced to 23 years to life in prison. [16]
In 2017, Virginia Beach gamer Brian "Poshybrid" Vigneault, also known by his alias of PoShYbRiD, died during a World of Tanks marathon livestream; Vigneault got up to smoke a cigarette 22 hours into the marathon and never returned. Vigneault had a record of chain-smoking and drinking during each session, which could have factored into his death. [17]
A dispute between two gamers, Casey Viner and Shane Gaskill, over the video game Call of Duty: WWII led to a swatting on an uninvolved person, Andrew Finch in December 2017. After Gaskill gave a false address, Viner then asked an anonymous online swatter to make the fraudulent call. Police responded, resulting in Finch being fatally shot. [18]