School-Based Interventions to Reduce Internet-related Addictions in Youths: Preliminary Findings from an Italian Pilot Study

Introduction: During the last years, internet-related problematic and addictive behaviors gained increasing attention, due to their effects on mental health, especially in youths, which show the highest vulnerability to these problems, given their high frequency of ICT use and digital literacy (Andreassen et al., 2017; Cheng et al., 2021). Nowadays Internet and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) become core instruments of everyone’s daily lives, for carrying out academic, work, relational, or entertainment activities (Oka et al., 2021). Taking this in mind is fundamental in distinguishing between positive and problematic use (e.g., Gjoneska et al., 2022). Positive ICT use motivates people to interact directly with others and is positively associated with well-being, while massive and negative ICT use increases maladjustment, such as emotional problems, behavioral problems, or work-related and academic problems (e.g., Alimoradi et al., 2019; Oka et al., 2021). To prevent internet-related addictive behaviors, and to promote positive ICT use, a school-based intervention was carried out over the last school year in Rome (Italy). Four meetings were conducted with students, and each meeting conceived an educational session followed by practical experiences. Aims of this study: The study aimed to preliminary investigate the effectiveness of the intervention, by analyzing mean differences of two negative and two positive internet-related behaviors in youths. Method and Results: 358 youths (35% females; Mage=15.35, S.D.=.63) completed the Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale (Monacis et al., 2017), the Smartphone Addiction Scale (Kwon et al., 2013), and the Active and Passive Use of Social Networking Sites Scale (Remondi et al., 2022) in the pre-and-post intervention assessments (Npre-int=375; Npost-int=258). Repeated Analysis of Variances showed that smartphone and SN addictions significantly decreased from pre-to-post assessments (i.e., F [1,229] = 7.95; p = .005; eta-square = .03; F [1,230] = 5.56; p = .01; eta-square = .02). In addition, offering and searching social support on SN significantly increased from pre-to-post assessments (i.e., F [1,233] = 5.07; p = .02; eta-square = .02; F [1,230] = 5.60; p = .02; eta-square = .02). Discussion: Our findings showed that problematic smartphone and SN use significantly decreased, while relational activities engaged with SN significantly increased across the intervention. These results suggested the short-term efficacy of the project and could be considered in the implementation of other school-based interventions, and in the implementation of more effective socioeconomic strategies to contrast internet-related addictive behaviors (Andreassen et al., 2017).