Digital Nativity and Information Technology Addiction: Age cohort versus individual difference approaches

Abstract

A “digital native” is a member of the younger generation who grew up in the cyber age. Although earlier studies have focused on digital natives' competence in information technology (IT) usage, their vulnerability to IT addiction has received scant attention. The overarching aim of this study was to investigate the hypothesized associations between digital nativity and four common types of IT addiction (i.e., Internet addiction, Internet gaming disorder, smartphone addiction, and Facebook addiction). Specifically, our study adopted a multidimensional approach to compare the associations between specific attributes of digital natives and each types of IT addiction. We further examined whether the attributes of digital natives could explain additional variance in IT addiction beyond that accounted for by age. In 2017, a cross-sectional online survey was conducted through MTurk among 1001 U.S. residents (56% women; meanage = 35.0, rangeage = 18–83). The results revealed robust positive associations between digital nativity and four types of IT addiction, albeit with differential associations between various attributes of digital natives and diverse addiction types. Moreover, attributes of digital natives exhibited explanatory power beyond that provided by age. These findings highlight the value of adopting the multidimensional, individual difference approach in the study of digital nativity.