Associations between online friendship and Internet addiction among adolescents and emerging adults.

The past decades have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of youths using the Internet, especially for communicating with peers. Online activity can widen and strengthen the social networks of adolescents and emerging adults (Subrahmanyam on the other hand, there is an alternative causal explanation that Internet addiction and preference for online communication conditions young people's tendency to seek friendship from people met online.