<p>Rapid advancement in technology is ushering us into the direction of maladaptive internet and social media use. Over the past three decades, there has been a surge in research in this area, accompanied by a proliferation of terminologies that capture the addiction-like internet and social media use. Some of the commonly used terms in this area are internet addiction, pathological internet use, compulsive internet use, excessive internet use, social media addiction, social media disorder, and problematic social media use. A close reading of the research further establishes that many of these terms are poorly conceptualised, have overlapping meanings, and are similarly operationalised, which contributes to terminological confusion and fragmentation in the field. Having grappled with these confusions ourselves, we aim to assess the prevalence and present a critical conceptual analysis of the addiction-adjacent terms used in reference to internet and social media use to clarify the confusion and overlap in the field. Additionally, we aim to develop a concise conceptual and operational reference guide for prospective researchers, enabling them to select the appropriate and relevant terms in the context of their research. To deliver on these objectives, we first identify the most frequently used key terms in this research area based on the frequency of their occurrence as keywords in empirical research published on Scopus. Subsequently, we conducted a rapid review of the conceptualisation and operationalisation of each of these terms in Scopus-indexed research papers. Based on this review, we clarify the conceptual boundaries of each key term, evaluate the corresponding operational tools, and offer suggestions for their effective use in research. We also highlight terminological overlap and redundancies in an effort to achieve terminological convergence in an otherwise fragmented field.</p>