Scientists at Stanford University publish annual data detailing the top 2% of scientists in the world, with this year’s list including Notre Dame University-Louaize’s (NDU) Dr. Nazir Hawi and Dr. Maya Rupert, the respective Chair and Vice Chair of NDU’s Institute for Internet and Technology Addiction (INTA). Dr. Hawi and Dr. Rupert additionally hold positions at the Faculty of Natural and Applied Sciences (FNAS) correspondingly as Professor and Associate Professor. The Stanford ranking, published by Elsevier, is based on the bibliometric information of the Scopus Database, comprising more than 180,000 researchers.
Dr. Hawi and Dr. Rupert’s individual and joint research efforts span several areas, with their articles being published in prestigious peer-reviewed journals, such as Computers & Education and Computers in Human Behavior. In terms of measurement tools, the pair have translated and validated the two most important scales regarding research in internet addiction and gaming disorders into Arabic: the Internet Addiction Test, and the Internet Gaming Disorder-20 Test. The two scales were requested for use by 14 Arab countries, the US, and other nations across Europe and Asia. They have also developed and validated new scales of their own such as the Social Media Addiction Questionnaire. With this reputation, they were able to provide their expertise to researchers abroad to validate scales in other languages, such as Polish.
Given their executive positions at the INTA, the bulk of Dr. Hawi and Dr. Rupert’s interests lie in measuring technology addiction in today’s youth, the first of many generations to be exposed to technology from early life. This led to the development of the Digital Addiction Scale for Children (DASC) in 2019, the first scale designed to assess digital addiction in children aged 9 to 12 years old. To date, the DASC has been translated into both Turkish and Brazilian Portuguese. Another significant joint article published in 2015 introduced the term e-discipline, referring to the “systematic practices that use screen devices as discipline tools,” thereby facilitating the study of the underlying factors involved in children’s excessive screen time.
To further illustrate the duo’s pioneering research, their highest-cited article is their 2016 “Relationships among smartphone addiction, stress, academic performance, and satisfaction with life,” cited by over 1260 other publications thus far. Dr. Hawi’s 2012 article, “Internet addiction among adolescents in Lebanon,” was likewise an innovative study in the Arab world and the first of its kind to be published with a Lebanese sample. Dr. Hawi and Dr. Rupert’s success has been so pervasive in the field, they have received four consecutive grants from the National Council for Scientific Research (CNRS) and several requests from other researchers to work with their team in developing the scientific body.
With all these accomplishments in mind, it is no surprise that Dr. Hawi and Dr. Rupert with their reputable advances in the study of internet and technology addiction have been ranked among the 2%, Dr. Hawi making the list for the third consecutive year. Congratulations to both of you!