Интернет как ресурс совладания с психологическими проблемами у подростков и молодежи

Abstract

The internet has become a new factor of socialisation, which has brought both new psychological problems and new coping strategies. The relevance and originality of the study lies in the fact that the internet is considered not as a source of psychological problems of adolescents and university students, but as a resource for coping with them. Based on the theoretical analysis of the phenomenon of coping, a working definition of this phenomenon was adopted. It was used to analyse and interpret the results of an empirical survey of 292 adolescents (11–17 years old) and 104 university students (18–22). The interview method was used to identify the role of internet as a resource for coping with problems. The answers were subjected to content analysis and frequency analysis in order to structure a set of coping strategies and perform a comparative analysis of their use by adolescents and university students. Teenagers and university students who use the internet as a tool for solving psychological problems were found to employ the following three types of strategies: emotional strategy (i. e., a change of attitude to the problem), problem-solving strategy and search for social support. The emotional type of coping style is the most widespread among both adolescents and university students and mostly involves the use of video and audio content. The use of problem-solving strategies increases with age. The search for social support on the internet among university students is not only more active, but also more specific and referential. Among university students, references to problem-solving coping style and to the search for social support are significantly more common than among adolescents. At the same time, 21% of adolescents and 7% of students deny the possibility of using the internet for coping with psychological problems. These results become the basis for testing the hypothesis about the relationship between the degree of immersion in the internet and its use for coping with psychological problems.