Around 6% of people worldwide are addicted to the internet, an international study that included Ireland has found.

According to researchers from the University of Hong Kong, the internet has become a necessity in people's lives, however societies worldwide ‘are facing new challenges as the convenience and excitement gained through internet use can result in individuals hooked on online activities to gratify needs'.

"An extreme form of this phenomenon is known as internet addiction (IA), an impulse control problem characterised by an inability to inhibit internet use that exerts an adverse impact on major life domains, e.g. interpersonal relations and physical health," the researchers said.

They noted that IA ‘has emerged as a universal issue', but international estimates vary worldwide, so they decided to investigate this further.

They studied data contained in 80 reports from 31 countries, including Ireland, the UK, Germany, Poland, the US, China, India and Australia. These reports involved almost 90,000 people. From this, they were able to estimate an average IA global prevalence of 6%.

They found that overall, the IA prevalence rate was ‘more than threefold higher than that of pathological gambling, another impulse control disorder'.

They also found that prevalence rates varied around the world depending on certain characteristics. For example, countries with a lower perception of life satisfaction, more pollution and longer commuting times had a higher prevalence of IA.

Overall, IA prevalence was lowest in northern and western Europe, and highest in the Middle East.

The researchers said that these results may have important implications for policymakers, particularly in relation to pollution and commuting times.

"By increasing the efficiency of transportation networks and installing stricter pollution controls, the environmental stress that people suffer from may be alleviated. When less stressed, people may be less likely to escape into the virtual world of the internet to search for emotional comfort, and hence the likelihood of developing IA may be reduced," they suggested.

They s also noted that they did not find a link between internet accessibility and IA.

"Interestingly, our findings documented high Internet penetration rates for northern and eastern Europe. Yet, the IA prevalence in this world region was very low," they added.

Details of these findings are published in the journal, Cyberpsychology, Bahviour and Social Networking.