Pathology of personality organization and problematic Internet use in adolescents

Personality organization model was originally used to conceptualize personality pathology in adults. Recently, it has also been increasingly used to understand personality psychopathology in adolescence. Problematic Internet use (PIU) is currently becoming a serious problem in the area of youth mental health and its prevalence is increasing. The aim of our study was to show that the level of pathology of personality structures may be positively associated with the severity of PIU symptoms in adolescents.

Polish adolescents (N = 443; 62.5% girls) aged 12 to 18 years (M = 15.30; SD = 2.11) completed the Inventory of Personality Organization for Adolescents and the Internet Addiction Test.

Research has shown that five dimensions of pathological personality organization explain an additional 18.3% of the variance in PIU (with "Unstable Sense of Self and Others", and "Arrogance and Mistrust" as significant predictors), in relation to gender and age.

It seems that PIU can be understood as a non-adaptive method of regulating identity difficulties, interpersonal hypersensitivity, and distrust in the world, in which cyberspace becomes a safe place for adolescents to experience themselves and present themselves to others.