[Excessive Internet use and Internet addiction: emerging public health issues.]

A survey was performed among students of various faculties at the University of Catania (Italy) to examine the health effects of excessive Internet use and behaviour patterns of Internet dependency. Three hundred students were recruited through a non probabilistic quota sampling method and were asked to complete a questionnaire aimed at identifying attitudes and behaviours regarding Internet use, and the psychological and physical consequences of excessive use of the Internet. The most relevant findings that emerged from student responses regard: emotional dependency on the Internet (5% of students believe that Internet facilitates social relationships, 4% experiences euphoric feelings or excitement while on-line, 1% consider the Internet as a way of escaping from real life), the excessive amount of time spent on-line (8%) and the inability to end an on-line session(8%), lying to family members to conceal the nature of involvement with the Internet (3%), giving up sports (2%) or meals (1%), the negative impact on school grades (3%), lack of sleep (4%), and physical health problems such as backache (2%), arm or wrist pain (2%), vision disturbances (6%).