ISSN 2079-6617
eISSN 2309-9828
Национальный психологический журнал

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psychology of the Internet

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Kolesnikov V.N., Melnik Yu.I., Teplova L.I. (2019). Internet activity and problematic Internet use in adolescence. National Psychological Journal, 1, 34-46

Background. The issue of Internet addiction is being actively discussed in foreign and Russian psychology in two recent decades. However, experts have not developed a common opinion on the concept of ‘Internet addiction’. Therefore different terms are used to refer to disharmonious relationships in the ‘man-Internet’ system: ‘problematic Internet use’, «’excessive Internet use’, ‘compulsive Internet use’, etc. Psychologists show more agreement in the description of symptoms of Internet addiction. Generalization of these features makes it possible to develop tools for psychological assessment of Internet addiction.

Objective is to identify the components of problematic Internet use in adolescence using the questionnaire developed by the authors of this paper, and to describe the relationship of the components of problematic Internet use with using various Internet services.

Design. Based on the analysis of the psychological literature, the symptoms of problematic Internet use were identified. The selected symptoms constituted the content of the questionnaire. Correlation and factor analysis revealed components of problematic Internet use. Relationships between problematic Internet use and using different Internet services were studied.

The sample of the study consisted of 150 people aged 16 to 23 years: 64 high school students and 86 university undergraduates. The data was collected throughout the period from October, 2017 to November, 2017.

Results. The study of symptoms and manifestations of problematic Internet use in high school students and university students allowed to develop a scale of problematic Internet use bringing together five components (super-value of Internet activity, frustration of vital needs, anticipation of accessing the Internet, reducing monitoring time and reducing the significance of events outside the network). The features of using Internet services depending on gender and age are described. Correlations of problematic Internet use with types of activity in a network are established. The most closely components of problematic Internet use are connected with use of communicative (social) services.

Conclusion. The study of problematic Internet use and its components allows us to offer a five-component model of problematic Internet use and describe the relationship of problematic Internet use with Internet services and applications using.

Received: 03/23/2018

Accepted: 09/03/2018

Pages: 34-46

DOI: 10.11621/npj.2019.0104

Keywords: addiction; Internet dependence; adolescent Internet addiction; psychology of the Internet; adolescence; social networks;

By: ; ; ;

Available Online: 01/30/2019