International Journal of Scientific & Engineering Research Volume 2, Issue 9, September-2011 1
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Relationship between Internet Using Mental health of Internet Users
Dr. Hossain Jenaabadi, Mohammad Mojtaba Keikhayfarzaneh
Abstract— Internet is a harmless tool by itself, however limitless and improper use of it may lead to the risk of addiction to internet and the present article aims to examine the relation between Internet Using Mental healths of Internet Users.Statistical community of the study consisted of internet users in cafes of Zahedan city, That 120 persons (60 men and 60 women) were selected by accessible sampling method as the sample of study. The users were divided in two groups of ordinary and addicted users, using internet addiction test (IAT, Yang, 1998). General health of these two groups was compared using general health test (GHQ-28, Goldberg.1987). The results of research was analyzed using Pearson's coefficient of correlation, independent (t), (x2) .The results of pearson correlation showed that there was a significant correlation between addiction to internet and mental health.
Index Terms— internet, addiction to internet, general health anxiety and depression.
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NE of apparent manifestations of facing world is use of modern technology. As a newly established dimension of modern technology of the contempo-
rary world, internet plays a vital role in the change and evolution of lives of the people of society. By internet into the life, internet has become a necessary tool rapidly, so that removing it from life is not imaginable[1]. The main changes, this technology has caused, has been summa- rized by "Marshal McLuhan" as the term of "universal village" that is , people , all around the globe, can com- municate as easily as the live in a village [2]. On other hand, despite of all advantages and opportunities, this technology has provided for researchers, if not utilized properly it results in new social harms such as addiction to internet, conflictions of cultural identification, cultural distortion, and etc…Though internet application devel- opment and remarkable increase in the numbers of users all around the world may apply a bright future for devel- opment of social relations, and different industries and affairs as well, extreme interest of some users has brought forth a major problem, called addiction to internet or "on- line addiction" holms defines the addiction to internet as "use of internet more than 19 hours in a weak". Yang re- fers to addict us a person who spends at least 38 hours in a weak or 8 hours in a day. Experts of pathology have provided the most restricted definition, as if a person use internet 20, 3 hours in a day. He/she will be regarded as an ordinary user and if this period of use reaches 5-8 hours or more, then he or she should be examined patho- logically [3].
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Assistant Professor of Psychology, University of Sistan and Baluchestan, Zahedan, Iran.
Department of Psychology, Zahedan Branch, Islamic Azad University,
Zahedan, Iran.
Orzak (1999) considers the addiction to internet as a disorder which the people who regard the screen more attractive than real life, suffer. In his opinion, everyone who has a computer, is exposed to addiction. However, shameful, depressed lone and bored people or those re- covering from other.
Addiction are more vulnerable. Technological addiction can be defined practically as non-chemical or behavioral that thvolves human interaction with apparatus. This type of addiction may be passive(t.v) or active (video games) and usually has inductive aspects that may in- crease inclination are those who look for a safe shelter to escape reality and seak to fill the gap of identity, so that they can become released from the real ground that may be one of internet addicts' internal-behavioral motives. The people called internet addicts look for a family which is a place full of emotions and feelings or/and worldly subjects. By keeping themselves unknown, the want to get a new identity through which they feel happy. Ac- cording to Goldberg. Addiction to internet can followed by rejection and avoidance [4]. Internet addicts sustain more harms financially, physically and culturally. Addic- tion to internet results in destruction of healthy relations and emotions and eventually, soul and spirit. When a person in family is addicted to internet, he/she firstly loses the opportunity of communication with other family members. This fact causes a defective circle. As a result, the person gets far away from family members [5]. In a research on examining the relation of medical signs with internet addiction among students isfahan universities, Alavi and colleagues concluded that there is a positive and significant relation between medical signs (such as depression, anxiety, self-supposed disease, obsession, inter-personal sensitiveness, aggression, paranoia addic- tion with gender control affects on nine-fold medical signs. In a research on examining the amount of internet use and its' social-psychological consequences among the
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students of azad university, "nademi and rezvani" (2005) has found that 77% of students are at risk of internet ad- diction, 14% of them showed that dependence on internet had affected their performance to a great exe\tent and a percent were not affected by internet[6]. Their research also showed that boy's dependence on internet is more than girl's significantly. In another research, conducted by dargahi and razavi (2007), under the title of addiction to internet and effective factors in residents of second region of western Tehran. concluded that 30 percent of users were addicted to internet and all of them showed some degrees of social-psychological behaviors such as self- unfamiliarity , inability and weakness in doing works, abnormal social behaviors, solitariness, centrality and emotional behavior. Also, adolescents have much more tendency to internet than other age-group. This research, additionally showed that singles and high school students are follow the same rule. In a research on amount of ad- diction to internet among café-net users of "lar" city (spring and summer, 2005) " fatemeh wizeshfar" con- cluded that there is a significant and time. A research, carried out by "leo sung min; so jin lee; and chang( 2003) on psychological characteristics of individuals who use internet to a great extent provided the following results: in the sample, 3.5% were determined as addicts to inter- net (IA), while 18.4% can be categorized as addicts (PA), criterion of addiction to internet showed that it is a strong relation with disorder social behaviors. IA group escaped from reality more than PA group and non-addicts. In stressful times on work or when being depressed, group of(IA) has more tendency to access to internet. Addition- ally, group IA showed higher levels of solitariness, de- pression and anxiety than other groups. Against dangers, members of(IA) group were more vulnerable than others. Hypotheses of the research
A)main hypothesis: there s a relation between use of in- ternet and user's mental health.
B)Minor hypotheses:
1ـ there is a significant relation between use of internet and physical health. 2- there is a significant relation be-
tween internet usage and disorder in social performance.
3- there is a significant relation between use of internet
and depression. 4- there is a significant relation between
use of internet and gender. 5- there is a significant rela-
tion between use of internet and age. 6- there is a signifi- cant difference between girl's and boy's mental health. 7-
there is a significant difference between ordinary and ad- dicted users.
method of research is descriptive-correlative. statistical community of research involved all net users of cafes of zahedan city and sampling method was random. 120 per- sons (60 male, 60 female) were selected. Data were col- lected using two questionnaires.
a) questionnaire of internet addiction test
this questionnaire was set up by kimberly young (in
1998) with 20 items and rated according to Likert's fife-
optional sores. The options of test were planned based on
DSM-IV criteria to determine internet gambling and alco-
hol dependence. Achieved numbers of each person classi-
fies them into three grounds: usual user of internet, users
that has faced problem because of excessive use of inter- net, and addicted user who is dependent on internet and
needs treatment. On each question, the subjects chose 1 of the 5 options regarding an adaptability criterion. After appointment the final score, the situation of each user was recognized, bused on the score 20-39 for usual user, 40-69 for moderate users, and 70-100 for seriously addicted us- ers of internet.
In the present research, based on IAT (internet addiction test), the subjects, gaining a score ≤ 39, are placed in the usual group of users, who gaining a score, more than 39, are placed in the group of addicts. Dynamic of question- naire of internet addiction was attained as 0.81, using kroonbakh's Alfa coefficient [7]. B) general health ques- tionnaire was GHQ-28 that was made by Goldberg (1972) and according to "Henderson" (1990) is the most known sieving method in psychology and psychiatry and has had a considerable effect on advancement of researches. The questionnaire is in the from of 60_30_28_12_numbers of questions. For increasing the variance, based on factors analysis on the main from. 28- question form was made by Goldberg and hailio and comprised of –four – 7- ques- tional criteria (physical sighs, anxiety, disorder in social performance and depression) the way of questionnaire scoring is based on licker's method, in which. Each of four-degree questions is rated as 0, 1, 2, 3 scores. So, the range of each person is between 0 to 84. Questions of one to seven relate to physical problem, the second four ques- tions examine anxiety, questions from is to 21 address social performance, and questions from 22 to 28 examine depression. In each criteria, if individual gains more than
6, and totally more than 22, she/he is expected to have a
disorder sign. Dynamic of general health of questionnaire
was 0.78, using kroonbakh's alfa coefficient
Data analysis.
there is a significant relation between addiction to in- ternet and mental health.
TABLE 1
PEARSON CORRELATION ADDICTION TO BETWEEN INTERNET AND MENTAL HEALTH
The results of pearson correlation showed that there is significant correlation
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between addiction to internet and mental health (r = 0.18; p= 0.047).
there is a significant relation between addiction to in- ternet and mental health.
TABLE 2
PEARSON CORRELATION BETWEEN ADDICTION AND PHYSICAL HEALTH
Based on Pearson correlation test, the results show that there is not a signifi- cant correlation between addiction to internet and social dysfunction( r =
0.14; p = 0.14).
There is a significant relation between addiction to in- ternet and Depression
TABLE 5
PEARSON CORRELATION BETWEEN ADDICTION TO INTERNET AND
DEPRESSION
The results of table-2 depicted that there is not any significant correlation between addiction to internet and physical health, (r = 0.12; p = 0.16).
there is a significant relation between addiction to in- ternet and anxiety
TABLE 3
PEARSON CORRELATION BETWEEN ADDICTION TO INTERNET AND ANXIETY
Based on Pearson correlation test, results indicate that there¬¬ is a significant positive correlation between addiction to internet and Depression (r = 0.17; p
= 0.05).
there is a significant correlation between age and ad- diction to internet
TABLE 6
SHOWING X2 TEST RESULTS BETWEEN ADDICTION TO INTERNET
AND AGE.
Using Pearson correlation test, the results indicate that there is no significant correlation between addiction to internet and anxiety(r= 0.16 = 0.08).
there is a significant correlation between addiction to internet and in social dysfunction
TABLE 4
PEARSON CORRELATION BETWEEN ADDICTION TO INTERNET AND SOCIAL DYSFUNCTION
The results of Table-6 show there is no significant relation between addiction to internet and age( r=10/44; p= 057).
there is a significant relation between sex and addic- tion to internet.
TABLE 7
SHOWING X2 TEST RESULTS BETWEEN ADDICTION TO INTERNET AND SEX
Based of test of x2, results show that, there is not significant relation between
addiction to internet and Sex (X2= 3.33; p=0/50).
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there is a significant difference between boy's and girl's mental health.
TABLE 8
SHOWING,MEAN,SD, AND T VALUE TEST RESULTS BETWEEN
MALE AND FEMALE OF MENTAL HEALTH
Sig | Df | t | Std | average | N | users |
0.130 | 118 | 1.524 | 15.995 | 25.18 | 60 | female |
0.130 | 118 | 1.524 | 13.494 | 21.07 | 60 | male |
The results of Table-8, reveal that there is not any significant different be- tween male and female of mental health( t=(118)1/524; p= 0/130).
there is a significant difference between mental health and users(ordinary and addicts).
TABLE 9
SHOWING,MEAN,SD, AND T VALUE TEST RESULTS BETWEEN
ORDINARY AND ADDICT OF MENTAL HEALTH
users | N | average | Std | t | Df | Sig | |
Mental health | ordinary | 39 | 19.46 | 15.17 | -1.98 | 118 | 0.05 |
Mental health | addict | 81 | 24.89 | 14.50 | -1.98 | 118 | 0.05 |
The results of Table-9, demonstrate that there is significant different between ordinary user and addict user on mental health scores
( t=(118)1/98 ; p= 0/05) that is addict user obtained higher mean score on mental health in comparison to ordinary user.
Addiction leads to love and ruin among human be- ings. Addiction to internet is not an exception. Present research examines general situation of internet addiction and it's consequences, emphasizing on mental health of internet users.
Sample of study consists of 120 users of café net of Za- hedan city(60 Male and 60 Female). Age of sample ranges from 15 to 35 years old. 30.8% of users were at age group of 15-20; 54-2% of user were in group age of 20-25; and
10.8% of user were in the 26-30age group, 4.3% of user were in group of 31-35. Group of 21-25 has the highest rate of users. Also, 81.7% of users were single, and 18.3% of them were married. In this research, based on yang's questionnaire, the users whose final score of situation is under 39. were considered ordinary. And those with a score higher than 39 are determined as addict. According- ly, 32.5% of users are ordinary and 67.5% of them were addicted to internet.
Findings of research show that based on parson's test of
correlation, there is a significant relation between mental health and addiction to internet(first hypothesis)
In first hypothesis, results, using Pearson's test, show that there was no significant correlation between addic-
tion to internet and physical health. This result is not con- sistent with the findings of dargahi and colleagues re- search (2007) which showed some degrees of weakness in doing works.
In second hypothesis, results, using Pearson's test
show that there is no significant correlation between ad- diction to internet and anxiety.
In third hypothesis, based on Pearson's test of corre-
lation, results show that there is no significant correlation between addiction to internet and social performance. This result is not adapted with the findings of the re- search conducted by nademi and colleagues and dargahi and et al[6],[8].
In fourth hypothesis, based on Pearson's test, the re- sults show that there is a significant correlation between addiction to internet and depression. This result is consis- tent with alavi and colleagues research findings. In a re- search, carried out by leo sang min and colleagues . it was found that at the time of depression, users incline to use internet more than other times.
In fifth hypothesis, based on x2test, it was found out
that there is no significant relation between age and ad- diction to internet, however, in "vizeshfar" (2005) study, the relation was significant[9].
Using x2, in sixth hypothesis, it was determined that
there is no significant relation between gender and addic- tion to internet. This result is not adjustable with the find- ings of Alavi's etal and "vizeshfar(2010)[10],[9].
In seventh hypothesis, results show that there is not
significant difference between users girl's and boy's men- tal health. The result is not consistent with findings of the research carried out by nademi etal (2005)[6].
In eight hypothesis, by using T test, it was found out that there was a significant difference between mental health and users (ordinary – addict). The result arein con- formity with the findings of researches, carried out by Alavi etal (2010), nademi etal (2005), dargahi etal (2007), shayegh etal(2007) and leo sang (2003).
Finally it should be said that , perhaps extreme depen-
dence on internet may not riskful always, but when per- son loses his/her relation with reality and lives in im- aginative world more than being in reality and become delightful and happy in virtual life, and loses his/her desire to come back to actual world, that is where , addic- tion to internet should be regarded seriously, and the ad- dict must be cured as other addictions.
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