Despite increasing attention to internet addiction (IA) in both clinical practice and research, our understanding of longitudinal changes of IA status is limited. In the present study, we employed latent transition analysis to investigate patterns of transitions and the stability of IA status among 5483 students (aged 9-12 years) over the two-year study periods. Additionally, we examined whether neurodevelopmental traits predicted certain transition patterns. The stability rate of IA class membership and the conversion rate from non-IA to IA status across the 2 years were 47% and 11%, respectively. The regression model revealed that autistic traits predicted the persisting IA pattern and that inattention traits predicted both the persisting and converting (from non-IA to IA status) patterns.
Keywords: Internet addiction; Latent class analysis; Latent transition analysis; Longitudinal study; Neurodevelopmental traits.