Internet usage of elementary school students has positive aspects which help present life to be affluent. However, if the internet usage is excessive, it might cause conflict in personal relations and relationship between parents and adolescents. More...
Internet usage of elementary school students has positive aspects which help present life to be affluent. However, if the internet usage is excessive, it might cause conflict in personal relations and relationship between parents and adolescents. Moreover, it may cause for children to suffer from difficulties in sociality and a failure in studies and this situation is termed as‘Internet Addiction'.
This research would figure out empirically real conditions of general elementary schoolchild’s internet usage and addiction standards. Based on this study's understanding, I attempted to understand the effects of parents’ child-rearing attitude parental supervision level on children's internet addiction. Research subjects were 505 5th and 6th grade elementary students in 2 districts of the Seoul by random sampling.
The results of the study is summarized as follows.
First, as a result of analyzing usage of subjects in research, 90.3% students' internet usage location is their house and living room has highest portion of internet installed location as 36.4%. And the period of internet usage is that 43.8% students have used internet over 4 years and highest portion of the number of weekly internet usage is '1~2 times a week' as 29.3%. In addition, '30 minutes~1 hour' occupies 38.4% as daily internet usage time and most usage area is that the first is game, the second is information search and the third is personal homepage.
Second, The distribution of elementary students' internet use was as follows. Among 505 subjects, a highly addictive group was is 4.4%(22 persons), a latent addiction group was 10.5%(53 persons), and an average group was 85.1%(430 persons). When I compared to the result of this study with the result of ‘2010 Survey of Internet Usage’(National Information society Agency, 2010), the percentage of a highly addictive group of this research was higher than the percentage of the same group in the result of ‘2010 Survey of Internet Usage'.
Third, this research analyzed ‘One-Way ANOVA’ to see that parents’ child-rearing attitude and parental supervision showed the differences across different groups. The results showed many differences. It was proved that father‘s Child-rearing attitude(F=13.087, p〈.01), mother‘s Child-rearing attitude (F=5.290, p〈.01), and parental supervision level(F=6.371, p〈.01), were significantly different across groups.
Fourth, to examine the different effects of independent variables, I developed 3 models to run the hierarchial multiple regression analysis. Model I was composed of gender, academic achievement level, self-control, impulsiveness. Model Ⅱ was added parents' child-reading attitude and parental supervision to the model I. Both models showed statistically significant R square.
In ‘modelⅠ’, all variables such as gender, academic achievement, self-control and impulsiveness influenced significantly on internet addiction. The model explained 19.3%. These results were corresponding with the results of the precedent research(H.J.Choi, 2010; Y.Y.Cho, 2008) which showed that control variables such as gender, academic achievement level, self-control and impulsiveness influenced on internet addiction.
Model Ⅱ explained 21.7% of internet addiction and there was 2.4% increase in addition to model I. Variables in model I was still significant factors, and both father's and mother's child-rearing attitude significantly influenced on internet addiction. It meant that the more being affectionate in parents’ Child-rearing attitude was the less addicted to internet use and the more being hostile in parent's child-rearing attitude was the more addicted to internet use. The parental supervision was not statistically significant in explaining internet addiction and the reason of not being significant was supposed that high rate of parental supervision average(40.76) influenced on the result.
In succession, restrictions of this research and the recommendation for the follow-up research are as follows.
First, although this research analyzed characteristics of three internet addition level dividing three groups as a highly addictive group, a latent addiction group and an average group, due to a constraint of sample size, there was a limitation in comparison between each groups. Thus, it is recommended to analyze the difference in each groups with expanding the sample size or compare general elementary schoolchild with addictive elementary schoolchild to define components of internet addiction in depth.
Second, the subjects of this research were randomly selected 505 adolescent, but this size was not enough to represent the whole population. Thus, it is recommended to do diverse studies on internet addiction and study by using panel data.
Third, this research figured out that parents’ Child-rearing attitude influenced on internet addiction, but it could not establish a causal relation between parents' child-rearing attitude and internet addiction. Thus, it is necessary to study further to establish the causal relation between parents’ Child-rearing attitude and internet addiction.
Fourth, this research used parents’ Child-rearing attitude recognized by children as a measure, but it would be necessary to study with a measure recognized by parents themselves. Thus, in a follow-up study, it is recommended to compare parents’ Child-rearing attitude recognized by children with parents’ Child-rearing attitude recognized by parents in internet addiction.
Fifth, this research was executed by quantitative research using survey, but it was difficult to identify the causes of internet addiction in depth. Thus, it is recommended to execute both qualitative and quantitative research for follow-up research about internet addiction.
Through this research, it was possible to identify the causes of internet addiction of elementary schoolchild. This research is meaningful because this research could be used for fundamental data to explain internet addiction of adolescent and as basic data to develop program related to parents’ Child-rearing attitude.