Problematic Internet and Facebook use and online gaming among university students: An exploratory study

Abstract

Advances in technology have introduced new challenges and issues for policymakers and researchers. There is some debate in the literature whether the Internet, Facebook, and online gaming addictions may be true addiction disorders or are all manifestations of a more general information technology addiction. The purpose of this study is to explore gender differences in problematic Internet and Facebook use and online gaming, and the independence of these phenomena. The study sample comprised 500 college students, who completed a sociodemographic questionnaire, the Internet Addiction Test, Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, and Online Gaming Scale. Males had more problems related to online gaming, and more problematic Internet and Facebook use. A bifactor model with one general and three specific factors-problematic online gaming, problematic Internet use and problematic Facebook use-obtained the best fit to the data. However, the specific variance explained by the factors of problematic Internet and Facebook use was low, but high in the case of problematic online gaming. Therefore, problematic online gaming seems to have more distinctive characteristics than the other two types of behavioural addictions.

A Communication Study of Young Adults and Online Dependency during the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…At the national level, research on the subject is still poorly developed compared to the international panorama, focusing mainly on social media and online videogames [2,56]. However, studies have shown that-despite affecting a small percentage of individuals-Internet addiction is a reality that, in Portugal, mainly affects teenagers and young adults in school and university, thus requiring intervention and the prevention of addictive behaviors in these contexts [43,57].…”

“…In this sense, the pandemic context in which we live carries increased risks for young people who have seen their freedom and sociability become limited to their homes and dependent on the online world. Several studies at the international level have crossed the field of psychology and communication to analyze possible changes in media use during the pandemic, focusing on the potential consequences of excess or a lack of quality [12,14,15,17,45,57,58]. Although these were sometimes preliminary studies of an ongoing phenomenon, they allow us to identify risk factors and issues that require attention and long-term investigation by the academic community and public health authorities.…”

Dependência Da Internet E Interação Nos Media Sociais Durante a Pandemia

“…A nível nacional, o seu estudo é ainda pouco desenvolvido, comparativamente com o panorama internacional, com foco principal em usos de redes sociais e videojogos online (Pontes, Patrão, & Griffiths, 2014;Dias, et al, 2017;2018). Contudo, estudos recentes (Pontes & Griffiths, 2014;Pontes, Andreassen, & Griffiths, 2016, Dias et al, 2020 têm evidenciado que, apesar de afetar uma percentagem reduzida de indivíduos, a dependência da Internet é uma realidade que, em Portugal, afeta principalmente utilizadores adolescentes e jovens adultos, em contexto escolar e universitário, sendo necessário uma intervenção e prevenção de comportamentos aditivos nestes contextos.…”