This research is for investigating the effects of adolescent internet addiction on school adjustment focusing on the mediating effects of depression and impulsivity. The target for this research is 364 middle school students in JEONJU, IKSAN and GUNSA...
This research is for investigating the effects of adolescent internet addiction on school adjustment focusing on the mediating effects of depression and impulsivity. The target for this research is 364 middle school students in JEONJU, IKSAN and GUNSAN. The scales used for this research are internet addiction scale, school adjustment scale, depression scale and impulsivity scale, and one-way ANOVA, a multiple regression for the analysis of data and Baron & Kenny’s mediator verification method.
The results are: Firstly, internet addicted group (7.2%) is more likely to be depressed and impulsive than the potential group (37.1%) and no addiction group (55.7%), where as potential group is more likely to be depressed and impulsive than no addiction group. However, the school adjustment results show the reverse.
Secondly, internet addiction affirms the effects of depression and impulsivity, but it negatively affects school adjustment. The effect of internet addiction on depression, impulsivity and school adjustment is statistically significant (p<.001). Also, from the point of view of the explanatory power of model, the model affecting depression, impulsivity and school adjustment are 22.6%, 18.1% and 16.5%, respectively.
Thirdly, depression and impulsivity negatively affect school adjustment. The effect of depression on school adjustment is statistically significant (p<.001), and its explanatory power is 19.6%. Also, the effect of impulse on school adjustment is significant (p<.001), and its explanatory power is 33.0%.
Fourthly, depression and impulsivity have mediator effect on the relation between internet addiction and school adjustment. That is, the power of influence(β=-.328***) of internet addiction as a independent variable on school adjustment as a dependent variable reduced in comparison with depression and impulse as a parameter(β=-.188***, β=-.162***).
The results of this research show that the internet addiction can negatively affect school adjustment. Not only can it affect personal emotion as depression and impulsivity, but also psychological factor can negatively result in school adjustment.