Abstract
The current study examined the associations between specific Internet activities (online shopping, pornography use, social networking site use, and Internet gaming), life satisfaction, and the mediating effects of loneliness and depression for these associations. Participants were 5,215 students (2,303 male participants, Mage = 16.20 years; ranging in age from 10 to 23 years) from various school types (546 elementary school students, 1710 junior high school students, 688 senior high school students, and 2271 university students) who provided self-report data on demographic variables, online shopping, pornography use, social networking site use, loneliness, depression, and life satisfaction. The results indicated that after controlling for demographic variables (gender and age) (a) loneliness and depression had fully positive mediating effects on the association between social networking site use and life satisfaction; (b) loneliness and depression played fully negative mediating effects on life satisfaction associations with online shopping, pornography use, and Internet gaming. Therefore, loneliness and depression were the underlying mechanisms that caused life satisfaction to be affected by online shopping, pornography use, social networking site use, and Internet gaming.
Highlights
The 20th century was the century of information and communication technologies, whereas the 21st century is the Internet age in which global Internet-based information can be accessed (Kim and Jeong, 2017)
Gender (1 = male; 2 = female) was positively associated with age, online shopping, and social networking site use, but was negatively associated with pornography use, Internet gaming, loneliness, and depression; age was positively associated with online shopping, pornography use, social networking site use, and loneliness, but was negatively associated with life satisfaction; online shopping, pornography use, social networking site use, and Internet gaming were positively associated each other; online shopping, pornography use, and Internet gaming were positively associated loneliness and depression, but were negatively associated with life satisfaction; social networking site use was negatively associated with loneliness and depression; loneliness and depression were positively associated with each other, but were negatively associated with life satisfaction
20 items of both loneliness and depression were parceled in five parcels, which consisted of four items; and 18 items of online shopping was parceled in six parcels, which consisted of three items
Summary
The 20th century was the century of information and communication technologies, whereas the 21st century is the Internet age in which global Internet-based information can be accessed (Kim and Jeong, 2017). Other studies have indicated that Internet use leads to pathological Internet use, which is linked to academic failure (Iyitoglu and Çeliköz, 2017), increased depression (Fayazi and Hasani, 2017; Zhao F. et al, 2017), increased loneliness (Han et al, 2017; Tian et al, 2017), increased anxiety (Fayazi and Hasani, 2017), and psychiatric disorders (Trojak et al, 2017), Specific Internet Activities Life Satisfaction and these negative consequences may reduce individuals’ life satisfaction (Kwok et al, 2016; Zhi et al, 2016; Oosterveer et al, 2017). Based on the aforementioned studies, the variables of loneliness and depression were selected to investigate the various potential effects of online shopping, pornography use, social networking site use, and Internet gaming on individuals’ life satisfaction
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