Studies have shown that, in the USA, 6 % of all surfers are at risk for developing an addiction that is damaging for the individual and the enviroment, 30 % use the internet to get away from anxiety and other negative feelings. The present study, which involved 847 adolescents in the community of Piteå, at junior and high school level, showed that 10% of the adolescent were in danger of developing Internet addiction, and 3% were problably already addicted. Teenagers are gereally at greater risk for this king of behaviour. The study showed that boys in the 9th grade were ecpecially vulnerable; they reported spending significantly mote time at the computer and the gave high ratings ont the 'risk questions' that other participants in the study. Interviews with five frequent Internet users showed a wide field of applications and different kind of internet addiction. Three of the five interviewees reported that they consider themselves to be addicted to the Internet, one of them also experienced severe anxiety, in part as a result from the internet use. In Sweden, little research has been carried out in this area., therefore this study is important. If something is to be classified as a "national illness" at least 1% must suffer from i. The results show that 3% of high school adolescents in this study may have reached that level.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UPSALLA1/oai:DiVA.org:umu-209106 |
| Date | January 2004 |
| Creators | Edin, Mikael |
| Publisher | Umeå universitet, Institutionen för psykologi |
| Source Sets | DiVA Archive at Upsalla University |
| Language | Swedish |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Student thesis, info:eu-repo/semantics/bachelorThesis, text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
Page generated in 0.0017 seconds