Journal Of Law Technology Amp; The Internet

[Ronald Frison]

CaseWestern Reserve Journal of Law, Technology & the Internet (JOLTI) is an annual peer-reviewed student-run law journal that publishes the works of academics, practitioners, and other relevant experts on a variety of topics including intellectual property and technology law. We welcome the unsolicited submission of any full-length manuscript addressing the intersection of law and technology. Case Western Reserve School of Law faculty members serve as peer-reviewers for all manuscripts.

JMIR is indexed in all major literature indices including National Library of Medicine(NLM)/MEDLINE, Sherpa/Romeo, PubMed, PMC, Scopus, Psycinfo, Clarivate (which includes Web of Science (WoS)/ESCI/SCIE), EBSCO/EBSCO Essentials, DOAJ, GoOA and others. The Journal of Medical Internet Research received a CiteScore of 14.4, placing it in the 95th percentile (#7 of 138) as a Q1 journal in the field of Health Informatics. It is a selective journal complemented by almost 30 specialty JMIR sister journals, which have a broader scope, and which together receive over 10,000 submissions a year.

As an open access journal, we are read by clinicians, allied health professionals, informal caregivers, and patients alike, and have (as with all JMIR journals) a focus on readable and applied science reporting the design and evaluation of health innovations and emerging technologies. We publish original research, viewpoints, and reviews (both literature reviews and medical device/technology/app reviews). Peer-review reports are portable across JMIR journals and papers can be transferred, so authors save time by not having to resubmit a paper to a different journal but can simply transfer it between journals.

We are also a leader in participatory and open science approaches, and offer the option to publish new submissions immediately as preprints, which receive DOIs for immediate citation (eg, in grant proposals), and for open peer-review purposes. We also invite patients to participate (eg, as peer-reviewers) and have patient representatives on editorial boards.

As all JMIR journals, the journal encourages Open Science principles and strongly encourages publication of a protocol before data collection. Authors who have published a protocol in JMIR Research Protocols get a discount of 20% on the Article Processing Fee when publishing a subsequent results paper in any JMIR journal.

A search of the PubMed database using loneliness and internet as search terms retrieved 77 articles on the internet and loneliness published between 2000 and 2010 and 177 such articles published between 2011 and 2018. Another literature search using PubMed retrieved 394 articles published in 2019 or later on the topic of social isolation, loneliness, and internet use.

Specific groups. Several review articles published after 2010 focus on specific groups, such as the elderly,11 children,12 or adolescents.13 In the case of the elderly, results show that internet communication technology may be appropriate for some individuals (eg, those with good computer literacy) but not for everyone. Future research should aim to identify those who would gain the most benefit.

There was also a rise in loneliness and mental health-related effects among children and adolescents during the COVID-19 pandemic,28 with loneliness both contributing to and exacerbating depression and anxiety in children and adolescents with preexisting mental health conditions.29 Lonely adolescents were more likely to use social media as a strategy for coping with restricted social contacts in real life.30 A study of Turkish adolescents during the pandemic showed that loneliness increases internet addiction,31 and other studies showed that internet-based addictive behaviors increased during the pandemic, negatively impacting young and adolescent internet users.32,33,34 Within this group, internet use, loneliness, and social isolation have been found to be correlated with mental health issues such as anxiety, stress, and depression.30

Despite the large literature on internet use and loneliness, there are many issues that require further study. For example, are there differences in the loneliness-producing effects of different internet activities? Does internet literacy have an effect on loneliness? Are cultural differences important because of differences in the availability of and attitudes toward different internet resources? What is it about online relationships that makes them less satisfying than in-person interactions? And does loneliness cause internet use or vice versa? Most studies do not show a causal relationship between internet use and loneliness but rather an association that could be bidirectional. Moreover, in research conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, social isolation may be confounding the association between internet use and loneliness.

From an ethical perspective, one can argue that both the prevention of loneliness and appropriate use of the internet are important topics that require appropriate guidance. The specific form of this information depends on the findings from the research, and it is apparent that there are many issues to resolve before appropriate guidance can be given.

Kraut R, Patterson M, Lundmark V, Kiesler S, Mukopadhyay T, Scherlis W. Internet paradox. A social technology that reduces social involvement and psychological well-being? Am Psychol. 1998;53(9):1017-1031.

Mozafar Saadati H, Mirzaei H, Okhovat B, Khodamoradi F. Association between internet addiction and loneliness across the world: a meta-analysis and systematic review. SSM Popul Health. 2021;16:100948.

Hajek A, Knig HH. Social isolation and loneliness of older adults in times of the COVID-19 pandemic: can use of online social media sites and video chats assist in mitigating social isolation and loneliness? Gerontology. 2021;67(1):121-124.

Andrew P. Smith, PhD is a professor of psychology and the director of the Centre for Occupational Health Psychology at Cardiff University in the United Kingdom. His research interests focus on well-being and health and safety in occupational and educational settings.

Hasah Alheneidi, PhD is an assistant professor of psychology in the Liberal Arts Department at the American University of the Middle East in Egaola, Kuwait. She completed her PhD at Cardiff University in 2019, with thesis research on internet addiction, information overload, and well-being.

Our goal is to provide you with a professional and courteous experience at each stage of the review and publication process. There are also some responsibilities that sit with you as the author. Our expectation is that you will:

Our editors and employees work hard to ensure the content we publish is ethically sound. To help us achieve that goal, we closely follow the advice laid out in the guidelines and flowcharts on the COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics) website.

If you would like to, or are required to, make the branded publisher PDF (also known as the version of record) freely available immediately upon publication, you can select the gold open access route once your paper is accepted.

We are a signatory of the Transparency and Openness Promotion (TOP) Guidelines, a framework that supports the reproducibility of research through the adoption of transparent research practices. That means we encourage you to:

While you are welcome to submit a PDF of the document alongside the Word file, PDFs alone are not acceptable. LaTeX files can also be used but only if an accompanying PDF document is provided. Acceptable figure file types are listed further below.

If you want to include these items, save them in a separate Microsoft Word document and upload the file with your submission. Where they are included, a brief professional biography of not more than 100 words should be supplied for each named author.

Your article must reference all sources of external research funding in the acknowledgements section. You should describe the role of the funder or financial sponsor in the entire research process, from study design to submission.

Your submission should include up to 12 appropriate and short keywords that capture the principal topics of the paper. Our Creating an SEO-friendly manuscript how to guide contains some practical guidance on choosing search-engine friendly keywords.

Headings must be concise, with a clear indication of the required hierarchy.

The preferred format is for first level headings to be in bold, and subsequent sub-headings to be in medium italics.

Notes or endnotes should only be used if absolutely necessary. They should be identified in the text by consecutive numbers enclosed in square brackets. These numbers should then be listed, and explained, at the end of the article.

All figures (charts, diagrams, line drawings, webpages/screenshots, and photographic images) should be submitted electronically. Both colour and black and white files are accepted.

There are a few other important points to note:

Tables should be typed and submitted in a separate file to the main body of the article. The position of each table should be clearly labelled in the main body of the article with corresponding labels clearly shown in the table file. Tables should be numbered consecutively in Roman numerals (e.g. I, II, etc.).

Give each table a brief title. Ensure that any superscripts or asterisks are shown next to the relevant items and have explanations displayed as footnotes to the table, figure or plate.

Please note that Emerald will not make any changes to the material; it will not be copyedited, typeset, and authors will not receive proofs. Emerald therefore strongly recommends that you style all supplementary material ahead of acceptance of the article.

If you choose to use an institutional or personal repository, you should ensure that the supplementary material is hosted on the repository ahead of submission, and then include a link only to the repository within the article. It is the responsibility of the submitting author to ensure that the material is free to access and that it remains permanently available.

3a8082e126