Abstract
The aims of this cross-sectional study were: (i) to establish the prevalence of problematic Internet use (PIU) and eating disorders (EDs) among Polish students; (ii) to investigate potential correlations between the two phenomena; and (iii) to identify predictors of eating disorders among socio-demographic and Internet use characteristics in this population. To this end, a total of 1008 Polish students aged 18–40, completed the Problematic Internet Use Test (TPIU22), the Eating Attitudes Test (EAT-26) and a self-designed Socio-demographic and Internet Use Survey. Men received more PIU scores (p < 0.001), while women received more EAT-26 scores (p < 0.05) with a significant correlation observed between those variables (rho = 0.212; p < 0.001). The strongest predictors of EDs were as follows: preoccupation with the Internet, neglect of sleep in favor of Internet use, alleviation of negative feelings while online, higher mean number of hours spent online on weekends for academic and work-related purposes, extracurricular activity, lower height and higher BMI. An association has been demonstrated between problematic internet use and eating disorders. Somewhat surprisingly, our results suggest that people at risk of EDs use the Internet primarily to fulfill their routine duties. Nevertheless, further research is needed to establish the causality of EDs and PIU.
Highlights
Observations in recent years have made it clearer that the Internet is a helpful tool facilitating learning, work and entertainment, and a source of threat and negative functional outcomes, assuming a form of addiction
Evidence suggests that heavy use over time alone should not be the only criterion for measuring problematic Internet use (PIU) [2], even though longer on-line activity has been demonstrated to serve as its strong predictor [3,4,5,6,7]
The aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of PIU and eating disorders (EDs), potential correlations between the two phenomena and ED predictors among sociodemographic and Internet use characteristics in Polish students
Summary
Observations in recent years have made it clearer that the Internet is a helpful tool facilitating learning, work and entertainment, and a source of threat and negative functional outcomes, assuming a form of addiction. In the literature, this very phenomenon is referred to in various ways as “compulsive Internet use”, “Internet related problems”,. Research to date implicates the purpose of Internet use in the development of PIU. On-line activity is more frequently associated with entertainment rather than study or work-related purposes [5,8,9,10]
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