Asia pacific journal of information systems

The Korea Society of Management Information Systems (한국경영정보학회)
권호 표지
DOI QR코드

DOI QR Code

A Gender Comparative Study on South Korean Youth Internet Addiction

  • Hasan Tinmaz (Technology Studies, Endicott College of International Studies, Woosong University) ;
  • Jin Hwa Lee (Global Healthcare Management, Sol International School, Woosong University)
  • Received : 2019.10.31
  • Accepted : 2020.05.07
  • Published : 2020.09.30
Download PDF
⟨ Previous Next ⟩

Abstract

As a part of advanced technology society, South Korean youth have been accessing the Internet at a very high pace. The Internet overuse could yield addiction where may be a serious psychological disorder of this century. The literature remarks that gender could make a significant difference on internet addiction. Therefore, this study aims to examine the effect of gender variable on internet addiction for a sample of South Korean university students (n = 815; 312 females and 503 males). The instrument had two sections; the demographics and twenty Internet Addiction survey items based on a five level scale; "Rarely, Occasionally, Frequently, Often and Always". The results showed that general tendency among the participants appeared between "Occasionally" and "Frequently" for internet addiction. In order to test five derived study hypotheses, the researchers conducted comparative statistical tests. The t-tests revealed that gender made statistically significant differences on nineteen items where males were higher than females showing that males significantly spend more time on the Internet than females. Additionally, t-tests results showed that seventeen of the survey items showed statistically significant differences with respect to types of technology dominant environment. The researchers created two dummy variables to combine gender and technology dominant environment variables and gender and school year variables, to have a better understanding the gender effect with one-way ANOVA. The gender difference still exists following its merge to technology dominant environment showing that the gender surpasses IT related environment. When school year combines to gender, males show higher scores for certain items, especially for freshman year.

Keywords

References

  1. Akdag, M., Yilmaz, B. S., Ozhan, U., and San, I. (2014). Investigation of university students' internet addiction in terms of several variables (Inonu University sample). Inonu University Journal of the Faculty of Education, 15(1), 73-96. doi: 10.17679/iuefd.98972
  2. American Psychiatric Association (2013). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed.). Washington, DC, USA. ISBN: 9780890425558.
  3. Anderson, K. J. (2001). Internet use among college students: An exploratory study. Journal of American College Health, 50(1), 21-26. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.12.158
  4. Bonnaire, C., and Baptista, D. (2019). Internet gaming disorder in male and female young adults: The role of alexithymia, depression, anxiety and gaming type. Psychiatry Research, 272, 521-530. doi: 10.1016/j.psychres.2018.12.158
  5. Ceung, L. M., and Wong, W. S. (2010). The effects of insomnia and internet addiction on depression in Hong Kong Chinese adolescents: An exploratory cross-sectional analysis. Journal of Sleep Research, 20(2), 311-317.
  6. Choi, O., Jang, K. S., and Kim, N. Y. (2019). Factors affecting the Internet game addiction risk of elementary school students in multicultural families. Journal of Health Informatics and Statistics, 44(1), 64-72. doi: 10.21032/jhis.2019.44.1.64
  7. Fraenkel, J. R., and Wallen, N. E. (2000). How to design and evaluate research in education. (4th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
  8. Fraenkel, J. R., Wallen, N. E., and Hyun, H. H. (2012). How to design and evaluate research in education (8th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill Humanities/Social Sciences/Languages.
  9. Fu, K. W., Chan, W. S. C., Wong, P. W. C., and Yip, P. S. F. (2010). Internet addiction: Prevalence, discriminant validity and correlates among adolescents in Hong Kong. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 196(6), 486-492. doi: 10.1192/bjp.bp.109.075002
  10. Ghamari, F., Mohammadbeigi, A., Mohammadsalehi, N., and Hashiani, A. A. (2011). Internet addiction and modeling its risk factors in medical students, Iran. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 33(2), 158-162. doi: 10.4103/0253-7176.92068
  11. Gong, J., Chen, X., Zeng, J., Li, F., Zhou, D., and Wang, Z. (2009). Adolescent addictive internet use and drug abuse in Wuhan, China. Addiction Research & Theory, 17(3), 291-305. doi: 10.1080/16066350802435152
  12. Hsieh, K. Y., Hsiao, R. C., Yang, Y. H., Lee, K. H., and Yen, C. F. (2019). Relationship between self-identity confusion and internet addiction among college students: The mediating effects of psychological inflexibility and experiential avoidance. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(17), 3225-3236. doi: 10.3390/ijerph16173225
  13. Johnson, G. M. (2011). Internet activities and developmental predictors: Gender differences among digital natives. Journal of Interactive Online Learning, 10(2), 64-76.
  14. Kawabe, K., Horiuchi, F., Ochi, M., Oka, Y., and Ueno, S. (2016). Internet addiction: Prevalence and relation with mental states in adolescents. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 70(9), 405-412. doi: 10.1111/pcn.12402
  15. Kemp, S. (2019). Digital 2019: Global Internet use accelerates. Retrieved from https://wearesocial.com/blog/2019/01/digital-2019-global-internet-use-accelerates
  16. Ko, C. H., Yen, J. Y., Chen, C. S., Yeh, Y. C., and Yen, C. F. (2009). Predictive values of psychiatric symptoms for internet addiction in adolescents. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 163(10), 937-943. doi: 10.1001/archpediatrics.2009.159
  17. Koo, H. J., and Kwon, J. H. (2014). Risk and protectiv e factors of Internet addiction: A meta-analysis of empirical studies in Korea. Yonsei Medical Journal, 55(6), 1691-1711. doi: 10.3349/ymj.2014.55.6.1691
  18. Lee, D. H., Choi, Y. M., Cho, S. C., Lee, J. H., Shin, M. S., Lee, D. W., Kim, B. S., and Kim, B. N. (2006). Relationship between adolescent Internet addiction and depression, impulsivity, and obsessive-compulsivity. Korean Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 17(1), 10-18.
  19. Li, G., Hou, G., Yang, D., Jian, H., and Wang, W. (2019). Relationship between anxiety, depression, sex, obesity, and internet addiction in Chinese adoles cents: A short-term longitudinal study. Addictive Behaviors, 90, 421-427. doi: 10.1016/j.addbeh.2018.12.009
  20. Lim, K., and Meier, E. B. (2011). Different but similar: Computer use patterns between young Korean males and females. Educational Technology Research and Development, 59(4), 575-592. doi: 10.1007/s11423-011-9206-5
  21. Mamun, M. A., Rafi, M. A., Al Mamun, A. H. M. S., Hasan, M. Z., Akter, K., Hsan, K., and Griffiths, M. D. (2019). Prevalence and psychiatric risk factors of excessive Internet use among northern Bangladeshi job-seeking graduate students: A pilot study. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction. doi: 10.1007/s11469-019-00066-5
  22. Mohammadi, A., Naghdi, A., Aliverdinia, A., and Kiani, M. (2012). A sociological study of the relationship between social capital and addiction to the internet among the youth in the city of Hamedan (Persian). Youths, Culture and Society Research, 5, 1-27.
  23. Mohammadkhani, P., Alkasir, E., Pourshahbaz, A., Jafarian, D. F., and Soleimani, S. E. (2017). Internet addiction in high school students and its relationship with the symptoms of mental disorders. Iranian Rehabilitation Journal, 15(2), 141-148. doi: 10.18869/nrip.irj.15.2.141
  24. Menon, S., Narayanan, L., and Kahwaji, A. T. (2018). Internet addiction: A research study of college students in India. Journal of Economics and Business, 1(1), 100-106. doi: 10.31014/aior.1992.01.01.9
  25. Ranking Web of Universities (2020). Webometrics ranking of world universities. Retrieved from http://www.webometrics.info/en/asia/republic%20of%20korea?page=1
  26. Seki, T., Hamazaki, K., Natori, T., and Inadera, H. (2019). Relationship between internet addiction and depression among Japanese university students. Journal of Affective Disorders, 256, 668-672, doi: 10.1016/j.jad.2019.06.055
  27. So, R., Makino, K., Fujiwara, M., Hirota, T., Ohcho, K., Ikeda, S., Tsubouchi, S., and Inagaki, M. (2017). The prevalence of internet addiction among a Japanese adolescent psychiatric clinic sample with autism spectrum disorder and/or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder: A cross-sectional study. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(7), 2217-2224. doi: 10.1007/s10803-017-3148-7
  28. Taha, M. H., Shehzad, K., Alamro, A. S., and Wadi, M. (2019). Internet use and addiction among medical students in Qassim university, Saudi Arabia. Sultan Qaboos University Medical Journal, 19(2), e142-e147. doi: 10.18295/squmj.2019.19.02.010
  29. Tamanaeifar, M. R., Arfeei, F. S., and Gandomi, Z. (2014). Relationship between internet addiction with neuroticism in high school students, Kashan, Iran. Bimonthly Journal of Hormozgan University of Medical Sciences, 17(1), 69-75.
  30. Tateno, M., Teo, A. R., Shiraishi, M., Tayama, M., Kawanishi, C., and Kato, T. A. (2018). Prevalence rate of internet addiction among Japanese college students: Two cross-sectional studies and reconsideration of cut-off points of young's internet addiction test in Japan. Psychiatry and Clinical Neurosciences, 72(9), 723-730. doi: 10.1111/pcn.12686
  31. Tateno, M., Teo, A. R., Ukai, W., Kanazawa, J., Katsuki, R., Kubo, H., and Kato, T. A. (2019). Internet addiction, smartphone addiction, and Hikikomori trait in Japanese young adult: Social isolation and social network. Frontiers in Psychiatry, 10. doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2019.00455
  32. Veena, V., MR, S. C., Chaitanya, J. A., Jaiswal, A., and Seeri, J. S. (2019). Internet addiction: Prevalence and effect on health profile of engineering students in Bengaluru city. International Journal of Advanced Community Medicine, 2, 105-110.
  33. World Health Organization (2018). International statistical classification of diseases and related health problems (11th revision). Retrieved from https://apps.who.int/gb/ebwha/pdf_files/WHA72/A72_29-en.pdf
  34. Yang, S. Y., Fu, S. H., Chen, K. L., Hsieh, P. L., and Lin, P. H. (2019). Relationships between depression, health-related behaviors, and internet addiction in female junior college students. PLoS One, 14(8). doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0220784
  35. Young, K. S. (1998). Internet addiction: The emergence of a new clinical disorder. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 1(3), 237-244. doi: 10.1089/cpb.1998.1.237