Abstract
Objective: The Internet can offer a seemingly safe haven for those being disappointed by relationships in the “offline world”. Although the Internet can provide lonely people with opportunities to seek for help and support online, complete withdrawal from the offline world comes with costs. It is discussed if people can even become “addicted” to the Internet. Of note, meanwhile, many researchers prefer the term Internet use disorder (IUD) instead of using the term “Internet addiction”. To illustrate the importance of one’s own social network supporting a person in everyday life, we investigated, for the first time to our knowledge, how social resources in terms of quality and quantity might represent a buffer against the development of IUD. Furthermore, anxiety related coping styles are investigated as a further independent variable likely impacting on the development of an IUD. Method: In the present work, N = 567 participants (n = 164 males and n = 403 females; Mage = 23.236; SDage = 8.334) filled in a personality questionnaire assessing individual differences in cognitive avoidant and vigilant anxiety processing, ergo, traits describing individual differences in everyday coping styles/modes. Moreover, all participants provided information on individual differences in tendencies toward IUD, the perceived quality of social support received, and the size of their social network (hence a quantity measure). Results: Participants with larger social networks and higher scores in the received social support reported the lowest tendencies toward IUD in our data. A vigilant coping style was positively correlated with tendencies toward IUD, whereas no robust associations could be observed between a cognitive avoidant coping style and tendencies toward IUD. Hierarchical linear regression underlined an important predictive role of the interaction term of vigilance in ego-threat scenarios and perceived quality of social support. Conclusion: The current study not only yields support for the hypothesis that the size of one’s own social network as well as the perceived quality of social support received in everyday life present putative resilience factors against developing IUD. It also supports the approach that special coping styles are needed to make use of the social support offered.
Highlights
For some persons, the “offline world” is full of frustrations, mortifications, and disappointing relationships
We investigated, for the first time to our knowledge, a potential role of the anxiety-related coping styles called vigilance and cognitive avoidance in the context of Internet use disorder (IUD) [these coping styles are described in detail here: Refs. [80, 81]]
German Sample N = 581 participants (n = 165 males and n = 416 females; Mage = 23.165; SDage = 8.253), mostly students (85.71%), gave electronic informed consent and completed the following self-report questionnaires: “Angstbewältigungs-Inventar” (ABI, English: Anxiety Coping Inventory) [80], Generalized Problematic Internet Use Scale 2 (GPIUS2) [102], the social support subscale of the “Fragebogen zur Erfassung von Ressourcen und Selbstmanagementfähigkeiten” (FERUS, English: Questionnaire Assessing Resources and Self-Management Skills) [103], and a single-shot item measuring the size of the social network [104]
Summary
The “offline world” is full of frustrations, mortifications, and disappointing relationships This might be, in particular, the case for lonely, shy, and/or socially anxious individuals. For these groups of persons, the “online world” might offer a promising alternative with its abundant possibilities to cope with one’s own disappointments in everyday life [e.g., Refs. Gaming platforms can provide fun but can be a cathartic outlet to release aggression [9] and an escape from real-life challenges [10] From this perspective, for some individuals, the online world could be perceived as more attractive than the offline world. The online world might resemble a safe refuge from disappointments of the offline life and may even function as a short-term remedy but with the risk of developing addictive Internet use [see, for example, Model of Compensatory Internet Use by Kardefelt-Winther [11]]
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