| 1994 | Kimberly Young begins a three-year study into the emerging issue of Internet addiction. The results are published in a book titled Caught in the Net. |
| 1995 | Kimberly Young founds the Center for Internet Addiction. |
| 1995 | Match.com launches the first-ever commercial dating website. |
| March 8, 1995 | The New York Times publishes an article titled “The Lure and Addiction of Life OnLine.” This is likely the first time that the term “Internet addiction” is used in a major publication. |
| Late 1990s | Scientists begin identifying the traits of Internet addiction using criteria from substance and behavior addiction. |
| Late 1990s | Pacific Quest opens in Hawaii as a wilderness therapy program for teenagers; it will eventually come to focus on Internet addiction treatment. |
| 2001 | An Indiana School of Medicine study finds that the brain changes after just one week of playing violent video games. |
| 2003 | Mary Christina Cordell and her boyfriend are so focused on playing the online game EverQuest that they forget their child in the car and the child dies. The media suggests that gaming addiction is the cause of death. |
| 2004 | Facebook launches. |
| 2004 | World of Warcraft launches. In its first ten years, the game gained more than one hundred million subscribers around the world. It received $10 billion in gross income. It is considered one of the most highly addictive online games available. |
| 2004 | The first Internet addiction treatment center opens, in Beijing, China. It is a military-style boot camp. |
| 2007 | Apple releases the first iPhone, and soon smartphone use becomes ubiquitous. |
| 2007 | Jarice Hanson authors the book 24/7: How Cell Phones and the Internet Change the Way We Live, Work, and Play. This is one of the earliest books on the potential negative harms of our modern use of the Internet. |
| 2008 | Chinese Ministry of Health approves a manual addressing Internet addiction disorder and naming it a number one health crisis. |
| 2009 | Facebook introduces the addictive “like” button. |
| 2009 | Dr. Dean Fisherman opens the Text Neck Institute to treat chronic pain associated with excessive phone use. |
| 2009 | reSTART opens. It is the first residential treatment center in the United States for people struggling with Internet addiction. |
| 2010 | Instagram launches. |
| 2011 | Israel Journal of Psychiatry and Related Sciences publishes a study from Tel Aviv University of the first documented cases of Internet-related psychosis. |
| 2012 | Larry Rosen authors the book iDisorder, in which he suggests we are all increasingly showing symptoms of common mental health issues due to the ubiquity of smartphone and computer use. |
| 2013 | Alex Soojung-Kim Pang authors the book The Distraction Addiction. He coins the term “contemplative computing” to describe mindful practices of using the Internet while avoiding its addictive nature. |
| 2013 | Psious is founded. This is a virtual reality company that uses technology to help treat mental health issues. |
| February 2013 | Tristan Harris of Google releases an internal presentation called “A Call to Minimize Distraction & Respect Users’ Attention.” It criticizes how major tech companies are exploiting the brain’s addictive tendencies in order to grow their bottom line. |
| May 2013 | The American Psychiatric Association releases the DSM-5. For the first time, it includes online gaming addiction as an area suggested for further study. |
| 2014 | American Psychologist publishes research into the benefits of online gaming for children, suggesting that there are both positives and negatives to frequent Internet use. |
| 2014 | A study called Facebook’s Emotional Consequences finds that social media can cause depression. |
| 2014 | Nir Eyal authors the book Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products, which others go on to use in their research into Internet addiction. |
| 2015 | Tristan Harris, who previously criticized Google’s exploitation of users’ tendencies toward addiction, leaves his job at Google. He founds the Time Well Spent project and the Center for Humane Technology. |
| 2015 | Mai-Ly Steers conducts a study at University of Houston that specifically finds that Facebook use increases the frequency of users comparing themselves to others, which in turn leads to depression. |
| 2015 | Dr. Kelly Lister-Landman completes a study into compulsive text messaging among adolescents that finds that girls experience negative consequences at much higher rate than boys. |
| 2016 | Nicholas Kardaras authors the book Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking Our Kids—and How to Break the Trance. |
| June 2016 | Computer Methods and Programs in Biomedicine publishes research suggesting that virtual reality can help in the treatment of online gaming addiction. |
| July 6, 2016 | Pokemon Go launches on smartphones as the first highly popular augmented reality video game. |
| October 2016 | Virtual reality company Limbix is founded. It uses technology to aid in mental health treatment. |
| 2017 | The National Institutes of Health launches a two-year study at the University of Connecticut School of Medicine to help determine whether or not Internet addiction is a true disorder. |
| 2017 | An episode of Real Time airs in which Bill Maher compares “the tycoons of social media” to tobacco farmers, exploiting our tendency toward addiction. |
| 2017 | Psychologists Mark Griffiths and Daria Kuss of Nottingham Trent University publish a paper analyzing the specific addictive nature of social media. |
| 2017 | VICE reports on a Match.com study that finds that one out of six single people feels addicted to the process of seeking out a partner online. |
| 2017 | A study by Yale University finds that teens on the autism spectrum reported better quality friendships when they utilized social media to aid in communication. This suggests that there are both benefits and harms to Internet use for certain populations. |
| 2017 | Adam Alter authors the book Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked. |
| 2018 | The movie Ready Player One hits theaters. It explores the benefits of living in a virtual world but makes an argument that it’s also valuable to live in “real reality.” |
| September 17, 2018 | Apple releases iOS 12, which includes the new Screen Time feature to help users monitor and limit their smartphone usage. |
| May 2019 | The World Health Organization publishes ICD-11. For the first time, it names online gaming as a specific health disorder. The criteria it offers for diagnosing this issue go into full effect in 2022. |