Internet Addiction and Alexithymia: A Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis explores the relationship that exists between Internet addiction and alexithymia. For this purpose, three databases, namely Scopus, PubMed and ScienceDirect, used the search term “Internet addiction and alexithymia” to find 279 records covering 21 studies. The data were analyzed with Jamovi (2.6.13 version) and R with Metafor package (version 4.6-0). The results showed a consistent relationship between Internet addiction and alexithymia (r=0.37, CI 0.32-0.42). Although significant heterogeneity was observed (I²=86.5%), meta-regression analysis revealed that age significantly moderates the relationship (p=0.045), with a stronger correlation for younger individuals. The prevalence of Internet addiction (mean=33.38, CI 24.39–42.38) and alexithymia (mean=50.88, CI 41.75–60.01) were observed to be moderate. Publication bias assessments, including fail-safe N (13189, p<0.001) and Egger regression (p=0.748) confirmed robustness.