Effectiveness of Solution-Focused Brief Counseling on Internet Addiction among Adolescent Boys

The purpose of this study was to identify the effectiveness of solution-focused brief counseling on Internet addiction among adolescent boys. In this quasi-experimental study, a pretest/posttest design with a control group was used.. The population included all male students in Tehran’s 16 district. One of the local high schools was randomly sampled. Of all the students in this school, 30 were selected based on the highest score on the Young Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and divided into the two experimental and control groups. The experimental group received six 75-minute sessions of brief solution-focused counseling, while the control group received no counseling during this period. At the end of the experiment, both groups underwent a posttest, and data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and analysis of covariance. The result showed that counseling had a significant effect on reducing internet addiction among adolescents. It seems that solution-focused brief counseling is an appropriate method to reduce internet addiction among male adolescents. The results show the importance of learning the principles of solution-focused brief counseling and therapy.