Titel
The Many Faces of Internet Addiction: How Personality Correlates with Unhealthy Internet Usage
AutorInnen
Caska, E., Visu, A.
Abstract
As technology becomes more and more mainstream, internet addiction is be- coming an increasingly prevalent issue in today’s society. As a result, it is of ut- most importance to identify vulnerable groups and develop treatment or pre- vention methods accordingly. The study, presented as an online survey, utilizes an adapted version of Young’s Diagnostic Questionnaire (YDQ) to measure the extent of participants’ internet addiction and the IPIP-NEO 120 to measure par- ticipants’ Big Five personality traits. The survey received 93 valid responses af- ter accounting for the answers to the attention items. The study was conducted with five hypotheses: Internet addiction correlates positively with neuroticism (H1), negatively with conscientiousness (H2), negatively with agreeableness (H3), and has no significant correlation with openness (H4) or extraversion (H5). In addition, demographic data was collected to explore further possible correlations. We found evidence supporting all of the hypotheses except for H3. Individuals with higher levels of neuroticism and lower levels of conscien- tiousness were found to display higher degrees of internet addiction. Partici- pants’ degree of internet addiction appeared to have no significant connection to any other demographic factors such as age, gender, education level, English proficiency or status as a psychology student at Heidelberg University.
Schlagworte
Big Five, Internet Addiction