The purpose of this study is to find causes of Internet addiction of the adolescents based on risk factors and protective factors. The subjects of this study were 216 adolescents who use the Internet too much and belong to the potential risk group ran...
The purpose of this study is to find causes of Internet addiction of the adolescents based on risk factors and protective factors. The subjects of this study were 216 adolescents who use the Internet too much and belong to the potential risk group ranging from 4th grade at elementary school to 3rd grade at the middle school in Daegu metropolitan city.
Internet addiction proneness scale, self-control scale, family protective factor scale, peer protective factor scale, school protective factor scale, aggressiveness scale, family risk factor scale, peer risk factor scale and school risk factor scale were used as measurement tools in this study.
For data analysis, correlation analysis, analysis of variance, regression analysis and covariance structure analysis were conducted and results presented are as follows: Looking at the correlation between Internet addiction and risk factors, Internet addiction had a positive correlation with aggressiveness, family risk factors, school risk factors and peer risk factors, but it had a negative correlation with protective factors, self control, school protective factor and peer protective factor. However, it had no correlation with family protective factor.
Look at the difference in the degree of Internet addiction for each demographic variable, the level of addiction of middle school students was higher than that of elementary school students. Students who had low academic achievements showed higher level of addiction than students who had high academic achievements. Family of adolescents with low economic level showed higher level of addiction than family with high economic level. The adolescents who used Internet in PC room showed the higher level of addiction than the adolescents who used it at home. However, location of computer and resident type with parents did not show any difference in level of addiction.
Looking at influence of risk factors which were examined through regression analysis on Internet addiction of the adolescents, the positive effects on school risk factor (low academic interest), family risk factor (negative communication), personal risk factor (aggressiveness) and peer risk factor (negative peer pressure) were variables to show a positive influence. Looking at the influence of protective factors on internet addiction of the adolescents, personal protective factor (self control) and school protective factor (support from teacher) were shown as variables to show the negative influence.
The results to investigate whether there was any difference in influence of risk factors of Internet addiction in each period of school ages (elementary school students and middle school students) showed that only school risk factor (low academic attention) had influence in elementary school students and personal risk factor (aggressiveness), family risk factor (negative communication), school risk factor (low academic interest), peer risk factors (negative peer pressure) had positive influence in middle school students. In addition, the results to investigate whether there is any difference in influence of protective factors of Internet addiction in each period of school ages (elementary school students and middle school students) showed that only personal protective factor (self control) had a negative influence on Internet addiction.
Through basic research on risk factors and protective factors, the personal risk factor (aggressiveness), family risk factors (negative communication), school risk factors (low academic attention) were sat as a personal protective factor (self-control) in protective factors as risk factors affecting Internet addiction and the covariance structure analysis was conducted to examine the buffering effects of protective factors against risk factors. The results showed that personal protective factor had a buffering effect on personal risk factor, but no buffering effects on family risk factor and school risk factor.
The results of this study exhibited that risk factors and protective factors affected Internet addiction of the adolescents like other studies on risk behaviors of the adolescents. To treat the Internet addiction of the adolescents, the programs to remove the aggressiveness and enhance the self-control at the same time by applying the same approaches about the existing risk behaviors of the adolescents, should be developed and distributed. If we were focused to remove the risk factors in order to overcome the internet addiction of the adolescents, we would need to provide academic interest program to increase the academic interest, which encourages the adolescents to get interested in learning and provide the program to improve the communication between parents and the adolescents.