Psychological Risk Factors that Predict Social Networking and Internet Addiction in Adolescents.

Montserrat Peris,Inmaculada Montoya-Castilla,Konstanze Schoeps,Usue De La Barrera

doi:10.3390/ijerph17124598

Abstract

Adolescents’ addictive use of social media and the internet is an increasing concern among parents, teachers, researchers and society. The purpose was to examine the contribution of body self-esteem, personality traits, and demographic factors in the prediction of adolescents’ addictive use of social media and the internet. The participants were 447 Spanish adolescents aged 13−16 years (M = 14.90, SD = 0.81, 56.2% women). We measured gender, age, body self-esteem (body satisfaction and physical attractiveness), personality traits (extraversion, neuroticism, disinhibition and narcissism) and social networking and internet addiction (internet addiction symptoms, social media use, geek behaviour, and nomophobia). The effects of gender, age, body self-esteem and personality on the different dimensions of internet addiction were estimated, conducting hierarchical linear multiple regression analysis and a fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA). The results evidenced different pathways explaining four types of adolescents’ internet addiction: gender and disinhibition were the most relevant predictors of addiction symptoms; gender combined with physical attractiveness best explained social media use; narcissism and neuroticism appear to be the most relevant predictors of geek behaviour; and narcissism was the variable that best explained nomophobia. Furthermore, the advantages and differences between both methodologies (regressions vs. QCA) were discussed.

Highlights

IntroductionRisk of Internet Addiction and Social Media Use. The use of social networking sites and the internet has grown in popularity over the last few decades and new technological tools such as smartphones may have become indispensable today [1,2]
Results indicated that age was significantly and in a negative way related to social media use, nomophobia, neuroticism and extraversion, while the associations with disinhibition and narcissism are positive
Disinhibition was associated with the four dimensions of addiction; neuroticism and extraversion were related to internet addiction symptoms, social media use and nomophobia, but not with geek behaviour; and there were a positive association between narcissism and internet addiction symptoms, geek behaviour and nomophobia, but there are not with social media use

Summary

Introduction

Risk of Internet Addiction and Social Media Use. The use of social networking sites and the internet has grown in popularity over the last few decades and new technological tools such as smartphones may have become indispensable today [1,2]. Prevalence rates vary considerably in internet addiction research. Across Europe, recent studies reported prevalence ranging between 4.4% to 13.5% for pathological internet use and between 14.3%. 54.9% for problematic internet use [3]. In Spain, the prevalence of problematic internet users has been estimated to be between 18.5% and 4.9% of pathological internet users [4]. Adolescence is an especially vulnerable period of change and teenagers face the risk of suffering symptoms of addiction as a result of their daily social network use [2].

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Conclusion