Your Internet Addiction May Be Genetic

Individuals with obsessive Internet tendencies display a genetic variant that it not present in control subjects who do no exhibit addiction-like behaviors, German researchers at the University of Bonn say.

In a new study, they found that the same gene change is also responsible for other forms of addiction as well, such as that to tobacco, PsychCentral reports.

“It was shown that Internet addiction is not a figment of our imagination. Researchers and therapists are increasingly closing in on it,” lead study author Christian Montag, PhD, says.

The new study was carried out on 843 people, of which 132 were determined to exhibit Internet addiction. The genetic analysis revealed the interesting genome change, which affects the CHRNA4 gene.

Scientists now plan to study if this variant is involved in other types of addiction, too.