Background: Behavioral addiction research has been particularly flourishing over the last two decades. However, recent publications have suggested that nearly all daily life activities might lead to a genuine addiction. Methods and aim: In this article, we discuss how the use of atheoretical and confirmatory research approaches may result in the identification of an unlimited list of “new” behavioral addictions. Results: Both methodological and theoretical shortcomings of these studies were discussed. Conclusions: We suggested that studies overpathologizing daily life activities are likely to prompt a dismissive appraisal of behavioral addiction research. Consequently, we proposed several roadmaps for future research in the field, centrally highlighting the need for longer tenable behavioral addiction research that shifts from a mere criteria-based approach toward an approach focusing on the psychological processes involved.

Background: Mental health apps have great potential to help people needing support to cope with distress or specific symptoms. In fact, there is an exponential increase in the number of mental health apps available on the internet, with less than 5% being actually studied. Objective: This study aimed to assess the quality of the available evidence regarding the use of mental health apps and to summarize the results obtained so far. Methods: Systematic reviews and meta-analyses were searched, specifically for mobile apps on mental health issues or symptoms, and rated using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation system. Results: A total of 7 meta-analyses were carefully reviewed and rated. Although some meta-analyses looked at any mental health issue and analyzed the data together, these studies were of poorer quality and did not offer strong empirical support for the apps. Studies focusing specifically on anxiety symptoms or depressive symptoms were of moderate to high quality and generally had small to medium effect sizes. Similarly, the effects of apps on stress and quality of life tended to offer small to medium effects and were of moderate to high quality. Studies looking at stand-alone apps had smaller effect sizes but better empirical quality than studies looking at apps with guidance. The studies that included follow-ups mostly found a sustained impact of the app at an 11-week follow-up. Conclusions: This meta-review revealed that apps for anxiety and depression hold great promise with clear clinical advantages, either as stand-alone self-management or as adjunctive treatments. More meta-analyses and more quality studies are needed to recommend apps for other mental health issues or for specific populations.

The main goal of the present study is to investigate the psychometric properties of a French version of the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and to assess its relationship with both time spent on Internet and online gaming. The French version of the Young's Internet Addiction Test (IAT) was administered to a sample of 246 adults. Exploratory and confirmatory analyses were carried out. We discovered that a one-factor model of the IAT has good psychometric properties and fits the data well, which is not the case of a six-factor model as found in previous studies using exploratory methods. Correlation analysis revealed positive significant relationships between IAT scores and both the daily duration of Internet use and the fact of being an online player. In addition, younger people scored higher on the IAT. The one-factor model found in this study has to be replicated in other IAT language versions.