Disorders Due to Addictive Behaviours in ICD-11: From Diagnostic Criteria to Feed-Scrolling as a New Online Addictive Behaviour – Clinical Practice Guidelines. Part 1

Robert Modrzyński

Abstract


The International Classification of Diseases, 11th Revision (ICD-11), offers a framework for describing disorders due to addictive behaviours that helps distinguish mere high involvement from a pattern that may be clinically significant. This framework is based on three core domains that define the addictive pattern: impaired control over the behaviour, increasing priority given to the behaviour over other activities, and continuation or escalation despite negative consequences. The article systematises the clinical understanding of these criteria and demonstrates how they may be applied to feed-scrolling, understood not as a separate diagnostic entity but as an analytical construct describing habitual engagement in an ongoing stream of digital content such as posts, photographs, short videos, news items, or shopping offers. Part one discusses the classificatory logic of ICD-11 in relation to disorders due to addictive behaviours, outlines the place of “other specified” and “unspe cified” behaviours within this category, and examines the three core processes using online con tent scrolling as a contemporary example. The text emphasises the need for diagnostic caution and argues against equating frequent engagement with digital technologies with a disorder picture. Part two of the article focuses on impairment as the threshold of clinical significance and on practical principles for differentiating high engagement from a clinically meaningful disorder

Keywords


ICD-11; addictive behaviours; feed-scrolling; online behaviours; clinical interview

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References


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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/j.2026.39.2.25-43
Date of publication: 2026-08-07 08:47:53
Date of submission: 2026-04-07 08:07:35


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