The Dark Side of the Internet Usage in Digital Addiction: What is the impact of AI usage?

The dark side of access to the digital world puts people at risk of digital addiction. That combined with the confluence of AI engines keeping people online, the negative aspects of access to the digital world are investigated in this paper. The findings suggest that general mental functioning of the users was also confirmed to both have a significant correlation with and effect on digital addiction. Because, AI usage interactions with user’s age and general mental function changes the pattern of digital addiction, its negative effects can potentially be mitigated through educational mobile health applications, powered through generative AI could help address the menace of digital addiction among internet users. The contribution of this study lies in uncovering the user characteristics that are predictors for digital addiction and adds to the literature by uncovering the effect of AI usage on the predicting age and general mental functioning on digital addiction.