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Background For youth in geopolitically at-risk environments, such as Palestine, the issues related to Internet overuse and addictions are complex. Youth residing in the occupied territories of Palestine as in other highly militarized zones have high levels of environmental stressors (e.g., militarization, poverty, lack of employment opportunities, cultural pressures, etc.) and few chemical or social outlets such as alcohol, intoxicants, and leisure activities. As such, the easily accessible and unrestricted opportunities for stress-reducing social contact of social media can lead easily to excessive and maladaptive Internet use. Therefore, interventions directly aimed at awareness and education on how to manage Internet use are critical for addressing these issues in high risk populations. Aims The purpose of the current study was to test the efficacy of a time-limited group training program aimed at improving social skills and reducing addictive Internet behaviors among university students. Methods and results The sample consisted of 30 university students who self-reported high scores on an Internet addiction scale. Participants were randomly assigned to either wait list or treatment group (15 in each condition). Results demonstrated that using a social skills training program over an 8-week period improved the level of social skills and reduced addictive Internet behaviors significantly in those who experienced the intervention when compared with a wait list control group. Conclusions These findings support the implementation of time limited training programs targeting social skills and addictive patterns of Internet use with university students identified with high levels of Internet addictive behaviors.

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The current study was conducted to test the relationship between problematic internet use, sleep disturbance, and life satisfaction among Palestinians during the Covid-19 pandemic. The sample consisted of 366 Palestinian adults (129 males and 237 females), recruited from online advertisements, e-mail campaigns, social media, and SMS campaigns. Results of the correlational analysis showed that problematic internet use positively correlated with sleep disturbance (r = .19, p < .01), and negatively correlated with life satisfaction (r = −.17, p < .01). Moreover, life satisfaction negatively correlated to sleep disturbance (r = −.25, p < .01 ). The regression analysis for predicting problematic internet use found that life satisfaction contributes in a way that was statistically significant towards explaining variance in problematic Internet use (B = -.15, SE = .05, β = −.15 ), in addition sleep disturbance explained statistically and significantly variance in problematic internet use (B = .16, SE = .04, β = .20 ). Intervention programs directed at decreasing internet use may need to be updated to better address the issues of “necessary” excessive use during COVID-19 restrictions and re-entry into normalized activity patterns when shut-downs are finished. As a completely new area of investigation, this study can serve as an impetus to further examinations of these important topics.

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In thecurrent study the Fear of COVID-19 Scale (FCV-19S), a newly emerginginternationally standardized measure of anxiety related to being exposed to orcontracting COVID-19, was translated and validated for a Palestinian context toinsure that it can be used as a measure of COVID-19 fear and to begin toidentify factors that affect this phenomenon including gender (with femaleshaving more fear than males), education (individuals without college degreedemonstrating higher levels of fear) and smoking status (with smokersdemonstrating higher levels of fear than non-smokers). The scale demonstratedhigh level of validity and reliability in a Palestinian context and thereforcan be considered for future studies as the COVID-19 pandemic persists. Furtherinvestigations using the Arabic Language of FCV-19S may have far reachingimplications for measuring and combating the fear of COVID-19 at a personal andsocietal level for uniquely at risk populations such as in the occupiedterritories of Palestine.