Always Connected: Problematic Internet Use, Addiction and the Catholic  Church

Introduction

How often do you use the internet? How many hours do you spend on your computer or mobile phone? How many social networks are you registered to? Do you feel like you are missing out if you are not connected online and compulsively check your social media? Do you find yourself compulsively ordering online? Do you prefer online interaction or substitute it for physical interaction? How much time do you devote to your personal life in a day?

The advent of technology has brought enormous change to the world: how we relate to it, experience it, and communicate with one another. The same is true of the problems associated with that development. Problematic Internet Use (PIU) is a growing issue in modern society. It manifests itself in varying degrees and forms. This includes compulsive web surfing, gambling, news gathering, messaging, endless research, social media use, gaming, shopping, and other online activities that interfere with daily tasks.

Like prey caught in a trap, it intoxicates and rewards with endless stimulation. If the victim does not struggle for his or her freedom, one can become suffocated in pleasurable captivity.

Problematic Internet Use (PIU) and Its Characteristics

PIU is a term used to describe problematic patterns of internet use. This includes online games, social media, streaming, shopping, pornography, messaging, and general browsing. The desire to use the internet becomes so strong and difficult to control that it begins to harm a person’s psychological, social, academic, occupational, or family life. However, PIU has not been established as a mental disorder in itself. Researchers continue to debate its definition, classification, and relationship to different forms of behavioural addiction. The term emerged from several studies in which the behaviour was described by different names, including “internet addiction” and “internet dependence.” From around 2000, some scholars began to prefer “problematic Internet use” as a broader term, partly because the word “addiction” was considered too strong without formal diagnostic recognition.

More recently, some clinical groups have used the term “problematic interactive media use” (PIMU) to capture a broader spectrum of problematic digital-media behaviour, including gaming, information-seeking, binge-watching, pornography overuse, and social media use. PIU is common across groups, although its prevalence varies by age, device, activity, and geographical context. Young people are particularly exposed to digital environments built around powerful algorithms, social features, infinite content, and constant stimulation. Social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat, X, and YouTube are prominent examples, alongside online gaming, gambling and sports-betting applications, and messaging platforms. But it is important to make a distinction: not every frequent internet user is a problematic user. Someone may spend many hours online for work, study, research, or communication without having PIU.

The decisive question is whether the internet remains a tool under our direction or gradually becomes something that directs us.

When Does Internet Use Become Problematic?

The core symptoms or characteristics of PIU are not too hard to see. They range across cognitive, emotional, behavioural, and physical domains.

It appears when someone becomes preoccupied with internet use, and it begins to dominate their thoughts. They constantly plan the next online session or think about online activities even when offline. It can also involve using the internet to escape negative emotions, reduce stress, or seek pleasure and relief. A person may become irritable, anxious, restless, depressed, or distressed when unable to go online or when internet use is restricted.

Another important characteristic is loss of control. A person repeatedly attempts to cut down or stop using the internet but is unable to do so. They may tell themselves, “I will only spend five minutes,” only to discover that an hour or more has passed. Eventually, consequences begin to appear. Relationships, school, work, family life, sleep, hobbies, and other responsibilities may be neglected because of internet use. This is why the problem is not primarily the number of hours spent online, but the loss of control and the consequences of that use.

Why Is It So Difficult to Resist?

Part of the difficulty lies in the way the digital environment is designed. Many online platforms compete for our attention. Notifications invite us back. Algorithms learn what attracts us. Infinite scrolling means there is no natural point at which the content ends. A video leads to another video, one message to another, one search to another. The result is an environment in which there is always something new to see, read, buy, watch, or respond to.

The danger is that what begins as an innocent search for information or entertainment can gradually become a habit of constant stimulation. We reach for the phone when we are bored, lonely, anxious, waiting, eating, traveling, or even when there is simply a moment of silence. The question then becomes: Are we using technology, or is technology increasingly using us?

The Effects of PIU

The consequences of problematic internet use can be wide-ranging. Psychologically, excessive and compulsive use can contribute to stress, anxiety, irritability, loneliness, and difficulty concentrating. Physically, it can interfere with sleep and reduce time for exercise and other healthy activities.

Socially, it can weaken face-to-face relationships. A person may be physically present with family or friends while psychologically being somewhere else, absorbed in a screen. PIU can also affect academic and professional life. Time that should be devoted to study, work, or important responsibilities can gradually disappear into endless scrolling, gaming, streaming, or browsing. There is also a deeper social concern. We can become connected to hundreds or even thousands of people online while becoming increasingly disconnected from the people physically around us. Technology itself is not the enemy. The problem begins when our use of it no longer serves human flourishing but leads to nomophobia.

How Does the Catholic Church View PIU?

The Church does not have a magisterial document devoted specifically to Problematic Internet Use. Nevertheless, the Church has reflected extensively on the ethical, anthropological, and social implications of digital technology. The Church’s view of PIU can be understood through her teaching on human dignity, authentic communication, temperance, freedom, responsibility, and the dangers of escapism.

While modern psychology and neuroscience may examine addiction in terms of neurological and psychological processes, the Church also asks a deeper moral question: What is happening to the human person and his or her capacity to live freely?

St. Augustine famously reminds us that the human heart is restless until it rests in God. Human beings naturally seek communion, beauty, knowledge, pleasure, recognition, and relief from suffering. These desires are not in themselves bad. The problem arises when finite things are expected to satisfy desires that they cannot ultimately fulfil. The screen can therefore become a place of escape. When it becomes the primary source of consolation, affirmation, pleasure, or relief, it can begin to take a place that it was never meant to occupy.

PIU and Human Freedom

Again, the Church sees this as a question of true freedom. The Church distinguishes between freedom of choice, the capacity to choose between alternatives, and freedom forexcellence, the capacity to choose and do what is genuinely good, and eventually to do it with increasing ease and stability. Compulsive scrolling and screen addiction erode interior freedom, trapping persons in involuntary habits and bondage of will. PIU therefore creates a fascinating moral-theological paradox: The internet gives us more choices, but more choices do not automatically mean more freedom.

I may have the freedom to choose among millions of videos, websites, games, messages, and social-media posts. But if I cannot freely put the phone down, my abundance of choices has not necessarily made me more free. True freedom is not simply the ability to say, “I can choose this.” It also includes the ability to say, “I can choose not to.”

The Church and the Digital World

For a long time, the Church has seen technological innovations as gifts that must be handled with responsibility and maturity in order to enhance human life and interaction. The internet is no exception.

Popes from John Paul II to Pope Leo have recognized both the possibilities and dangers of digital technology. Benedict XVI saw the internet as a valuable tool, but also cautioned against allowing digital technology to take the centre of our lives. Constant exposure to digital noise, images, and scrolling can diminish our capacity for deep reflection, contemplation, and genuine human encounter. Pope Francis, in his reflections on communication and the digital world, recognizes that digital networks can facilitate genuine encounter, but they can also create loneliness, manipulation, exploitation, and superficial relationships.

Similarly, the Vatican Dicastery for Communication, in Towards Full Presence: A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media, encourages Christians not to remain merely consumers of digital content but to become people who cultivate genuine presence and authentic relationships. Pope Leo XIV, in his 7 November 2025 video message to participants of Italy’s 7th National Conference on Addictions, also warned about the growing use of the internet and digital devices as an emerging form of addiction that can affect physical, intellectual, and spiritual growth.

The Church’s message is not that technology is evil or that Christians should abandon the digital world. Rather, technology must remain at the service of the human person, not become the master of the person.

What Can We Do?

The first step is awareness. We cannot change a behaviour we refuse to recognize.

We need to examine our digital habits honestly. Why do I reach for my phone? What am I looking for? Can I stop when I want to stop? Has my internet use affected my sleep, work, studies, relationships, or responsibilities? The answer may require something as simple as setting boundaries: turning off unnecessary notifications, creating screen-free periods, keeping phones away during meals, protecting time for sleep, or deliberately creating space for face-to-face interaction.

For some people, however, PIU may be connected to deeper psychological or emotional difficulties. In such cases, professional help may be necessary. The goal is not merely to remove the internet but to understand what the person is seeking through it and to find healthier ways of meeting those needs. For the Catholic, the virtues of temperance and self-mastery provide an additional framework. The Christian is called not to reject technology but to use it responsibly and freely, in a way that respects one’s dignity and the dignity of others.

Conclusion

We live in a world that has never been more connected. We can communicate across continents in seconds, access almost unlimited information, entertain ourselves at any moment, and remain constantly in contact with others. Yet the question remains: What kind of people are we becoming through this constant connection?

Problematic Internet Use reminds us that connection is not the same as communion, information is not the same as wisdom, and choice is not necessarily the same as freedom. The internet is a powerful tool, but like every powerful tool, it requires responsibility. It can enrich our lives when we remain its users. It becomes a problem when we gradually become its servants. Perhaps, therefore, the most important question is not simply, “How much time do I spend online?” but: “Am I still free to put it down?” The challenge is not to become less connected to the world, but to ensure that our connection to the digital world does not disconnect us from what makes us truly human.

Fr. Kevin Chukwuka

References

1. World Health Organization. “Gaming Disorder.” ICD-11.

2. American Psychiatric Association. Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 5th ed. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association, 2013.

3.  Dicastery for Communication. Towards Full Presence: A Pastoral Reflection on Engagement with Social Media. Vatican City, 2023.

4.  Francis. Fratelli Tutti: On Fraternity and Social Friendship. Vatican City, 2020.

5.  John Paul II. Veritatis Splendor. Vatican City, 1993.

6.  Catechism of the Catholic Church, nos. 1730–1742.

7.  Augustine of Hippo. Confessions, Book I, Chapter 1.