Since the inception of the Internet, research has suggested that a small group of people have a tendency to abuse the Internet and thereby cause damage to their health, their personal life and/or their professional life. Numerous terms, including Internet Addiction Disorder and pathological Internet use, have been used to describe this behaviour and its consequences. More recently, the term, problematic Internet use, has been favoured to describe people who cannot resist engaging with the Internet. This article describes the development and psychometric properties of the Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ). The development of the PIUQ was a two-stage process involving a pilot study on a smaller sample (N = 279) and a validation study on a much larger sample (N = 1795). The results of the validation study provided good evidence for the reliability and construct validity of the PIUQ. The exploratory factor analysis suggests that the PIUQ may consist of three sub-scales (i.e., Online preoccupation, Adverse effects and Social interactions), each with good internal reliability. The discussion provides recommendations for future studies using and validating the PIUQ.

Recent research findings indicate that some users of the Internet spend so much time on the Internet that their personal and/or professional lives suffer. The term Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) has been used to describe a psychological disorder where individuals cannot resist engaging with the Internet, although an argument is made to use the term problematic Internet use in this study. This article reports on a descriptive, exploratory study to assess the extent of problematic Internet use in the South African population as well as an exploratory look at the biographical characteristics and Internet behaviours most closely associated with problematic Internet use in the South African environment. The article also explores the associations that users most at risk of problematic Internet use have of the Internet. The results show that the prevalence of problematic Internet use is relatively low (between 1.67% and 5.29%), compared to prevalence rates in other countries. The demographic profile of the South African problematic Internet user was found to be similarto demographic profiles from other international studies (i.e., young, males, who spend a considerable amount of time online, using interactive Internet applications). However, the associations with online activities for the high-risk problematic Internet use group were different when compared to psychological correlates from other studies. The associations indicate that the high-risk group experiences feelings of excitement, friendship and control when online. The implications of these results are discussed in line with previous studies and the theory on problematic Internet use.

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