A new study has shown that parents who pay little attention to their children are more likely to have children who become internet addicts.

A study of young adults showed the parents labeled as tough or demanding along with showing little affection were also those most connected to children with personality traits that made it difficult for them to interact with other humans.

“In short, good parenting, including parental warmth and affection, that is caring and protective parents, has been associated with lower risk for Internet addiction,” Argyroula E. Kalaitzaki of the Technological Education Institute (TEI) of Crete in Heraklion told Yahoo news, “whereas bad parenting, including parental control and intrusion, that is authoritarian and neglectful parents, has been associated with higher risk for addiction.”

Internet addiction is still considered a fairly new psychological diagnosis and scientists have not fully agreed on a definition for addiction.

“Parents that identify their children to have some symptoms of addiction, like excessive time spent online or need to spend increasingly longer periods online, inadequate sleep and fatigue, apathy, nervousness, or irritability when offline, impairments in relationships and schoolwork or employment, should contact a health care professional as soon as possible,” Kalaitzaki said.