A Mobile Phone-based Self-Screening and Recovery Tool for Internet Addiction Disorder in Persons 

Fidelis I. Onah ^1* and Samuel Ekong²

ABSTRACT

This research paper implements a simple interactive browser-based, mobile friendly web application which screens persons of all age groups for Internet Addiction and prescribes a recovery therapy for severe symptoms. Data on socio-demographic indicators, Internet usage, psychosomatic symptoms and quality of life of the user are automatically collected as the user fills-in the self-administered questionnaire based on Young’s Internet Addiction Test (YIAT) and the 5-point Likert scale. Object oriented design methodology is required to support applications for devices like cell phones, pagers and personal digital assistants. Since the Android mobile application development is based on Java language codes, therefore, normal Java Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) and Google-enabled Android Java libraries were used to render services on the mobile devices. Other development tools used are Google forms for presenting the Internet Addiction questionnaire to the users; Spreadsheets for retrieving the data collected from the Google forms and generate a score based on user response; and Gmail for the medical team to automatically generate the test results and send as mail to the users. The research work includes a trusted recovery therapy which addicted individuals can access as email at the comfort of their homes. The work further incorporates a means of printing out a record of progress after a user’s session. In these periods of the global pandemic, an online screening, evaluation and therapeutic care can save you time and money; and even improve your mental health.

Keywords: Diagnostic Questionnaire, Healthcare, Internet Addiction, Mobile App, Self-Care, Screening, Therapeutic Care, Web App