Search results

This study aims to segment and profile young internet addicts in India and examine their state of well-being.

Young’s Internet Addiction Test was adapted to identify and profile cohorts among the internet addicts. Diener’s satisfaction with life scale was used to measure the well-being. Convenience sampling was used to conduct an online survey and obtain a representative sample of 320 urban internet users. A mixed-method approach was deployed and exploratory factor analysis followed by k-means cluster analysis and discriminant analysis were used to analyse the quantitative data.

Data analysis revealed the existence of three distinct clusters: non-addicts (135), potential internet addicts (n = 128) and addicts (n = 57). Smartphones and tablets were the primary devices for accessing the internet. Wi-Fi and data cards were used by all groups for internet browsing, messaging and visiting social networking sites. The usage hours were higher for the potential internet addicts and internet addicts. These groups also faced considerable internal conflict and dissonance in their inability to control their addictive behaviour and online cravings. The non-addicts were more satisfied with their life conditions and better adjusted than the other two groups.

The incidence of diverse internet addicted groups needs to be validated through a larger sample in other regions and geographies. There is also a dire need to study other vulnerable groups, such as internet-savvy adolescents.

The study found the existence of well-defined segments and identified unique areas of conflict for each group, which subsequently affected their sense of well-being.

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is a serious mental health condition that is frequently misdiagnosed and left untreated for extended periods. A contributing factor may be the lack of awareness regarding OCD’s heterogeneous symptom presentations in nonpsychiatric medical providers (MPs). Nonpsychiatric MPs are often consulted by those with OCD and are thus in a key position to first identify the symptoms in a person. Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess nonpsychiatric MPs’ ability to recognize varying symptom presentations of OCD.

The current study examined OCD recognition rates in 105 nonpsychiatric MPs practicing on Guam – a rural island community with limited mental health resources. Participants were randomly assigned to read one of six vignettes describing a common obsessional theme within OCD (i.e. contamination, symmetry, religion, homosexuality, pedophilia or aggression) and asked to provide their diagnostic impressions.

Over half of participating MPs (58.1%) did not recognize the condition in the vignettes as OCD. As groups, vignettes describing taboo obsessions were significantly less likely to be recognized as OCD than those describing contamination and symmetry obsessions. Overall, results reveal that MPs are largely unaware of the diversity of OCD symptoms.

Few studies have examined nonpsychiatric MPs’ awareness of varying OCD symptom presentations, and to the best of the authors’ knowledge, no studies to date have been conducted on MPs practicing in rural settings. The findings of this study can inform training programs for MPs to help decrease OCD misdiagnoses in medical settings.

Considering the popularity and addictive attributes of microblogging, the purpose of this paper is to explore the key drivers of the microblogging addiction tendency, and to investigate the causal relationship between microblogging usage and addiction tendency through the lens of the uses and gratifications (U&G) theory.

By extending the U&G theory to accommodate the negative consequences of gratification, a research model that explains the relationships among microblogging use, gratification and addiction tendency was developed and empirically examined based on the data collected from 520 microblogging users in China.

The results showed that different types of microblogging use lead to different categories of gratification to different extents, while different categories of gratification play different roles in determining the level of addiction tendency. Specifically, the effect of content gratification on addiction is marginal, while social gratification has significant effects on all dimensions of addiction tendency.

The present study has both theoretical and practical implications. From a theoretical perspective, unlike many previous studies applied the U&G theory to explore the positive outcomes of media uses, this paper extends the U&G by including addiction tendency as a negative psychological outcome of U&G., resulting a research framework (use-gratification-addiction framework). Meanwhile, this paper contributes to the extending literature by examining the constructs of U&G at a granular level and investigated the causal relationship between “uses” and “gratifications.”

The purpose of this paper is to delineate the overall theoretical framework on the topic of internet addiction through the comprehensive narrative review to make readers aware of the conceptual growth and development in the respective field. The paper evolves theoretically from the historical foundation, phenomenology, clinical feature, etiological model to the treatment outcome of internet addiction. Multiple studies have been done in the field of mental health but dearth of work given head to toe theoretical overview for understanding of this trendsetter research area in mental health.

Extensive review of literature has been carried out to make a systematic layout for conceptual paper.

The internet has been a source of gratification for several behavioral addictions as well as psychiatric disorders. Mainly because of the lack of established diagnostic criteria and a dearth of large sample surveys, the prevalence of problematic internet use (PIU) in general population has not been established. Still, from all the consolidated data, PIU seems to have a male preponderance and manifests itself in late adulthood. Symptoms of PIU can easily be masked with signs of dependence, tolerance and withdrawal which is quite similar to the phenomenology of substance addiction. Psychiatric co-morbidities are more of a norm than the exception in case of PIU. Even though the clinical status of PIU is doubtful, still there is a significant demand for its treatment all over the world. Overall, the excessive use of internet has been strongly debated in literature from PIU to a positive addiction. Only time will tell how it affects our civilization as a phenomenon of evolutionary significance.

The paper is providing a general conceptual framework for internet addiction/PIU to enable readers to know about the topic in depth from the evolution of the concept to the recent developments in the area.

Buying behavior has been significantly altered by technological developments as a result of the rise of the Internet. Online buying behavior is also inextricably linked to electronic payment systems, such as credit cards. This paper investigates how credit-card systems and online shopping increases compulsive buying of female and male consumers.

In the current study, the authors tested the influence of credit card possession and the role of Internet shopping on gender differences in compulsive buying in a representative German sample (n = 1,038). Binary logistic regression analysis and moderator analysis were applied.

As predicted, Internet shopping increased compulsive buying, but the association was the same for females and males. Further, credit card possession moderated the effect of gender on compulsive buying, with females showing a higher proneness to compulsive buying.

This research, which is based on a representative population study, contributes to the understanding of the role of credit cards and the one of online shopping in developing compulsive buying patterns among female and male consumers.

The purpose of this study is to re-examine the characteristics of compulsive buying behaviour (CBB) based on a new improved screener. The study analyses young compulsive buyer attitudes, decision-making, product preferences, the impact of credit card use and post-purchase perspectives in relation to CBB severity.

The study takes a quantitative approach to the analysis of compulsive behaviour among young consumers, using data from a questionnaire survey and a large sample. A wide range of statistical procedures and structural equation modelling are used in the analysis.

The segmentation of compulsive buyers, on the basis of disorder severity, provides important insights into the asymmetrical between-group variation in anxiety levels, product preferences, feelings, attitudes and credit card impact and the within-group variability in daily compulsivity patterns and associated shopping behaviour.

Although the overall used sample size is large, the subdivision of compulsive consumers into mild and severe categories resulted in a relatively small group of severely compulsive buyers; hence, further research is recommended to corroborate the findings from this study. In addition, this research does not address the disorder’s temporal dimension; therefore, future longitudinal studies should be undertaken to analyse the progression and characteristics of the disorder over time.

The significant differences between mild compulsive buyers and severely compulsive buyers make a significant contribution to counselling practitioners because of the different levels of support that should be offered in relation to the severity of the condition.

The study compares non-compulsive behaviour with occasionally compulsive, mildly compulsive and severely compulsive consumers using an improved screening tool. It identifies critical criteria that distinguish between mild and severe forms of the disorder, which have hitherto been neglected, yet represent key diagnostic and predictive factors, which can inform both early intervention and our understanding of CBB and its complexity.

The purpose of this paper is to present brief YouTube life stories to learn about how extensive users experience YouTube use and manage (or fail to manage) their use. It also explores the consequences of different types of extensive use.

In this paper, a biographical approach was used. Nine students who used YouTube for two or more hours every day were guided to tell life stories of their introduction to YouTube, subsequent use and critical events associated with YouTube use. Thematic analysis distinguished between non-problematic, compulsive and addicted users. Three single case life stories illustrate the experiences of users in each category.

These extensive YouTube users tell similar stories of informal learning from early interaction with the platform. For some, extensive YouTube use became problematic; for others, it remained functional. Similar to other social platforms, users unable to regulate use became compulsive users and some users can become addicted. While the symptoms of YouTube addiction are similar to other online addictions, compulsive YouTube use is driven more by algorithm-generated content chaining than overt social interaction.

The paper introduces life stories as a way to present case studies of social media use. The distinction between extensive, but functional, and problematic YouTube use illustrates how extensive social media use is not necessarily dysfunctional. User education for self-regulation of YouTube use is recommended.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the usage of digital technologies (DTs) in improving the mental health of workers on construction sites.

A mixed research approach was used in the study, which comprised a questionnaire survey and two phases of semi-structured interviews. Purposive sampling was used to determine the interviewees and respondents of the questionnaire survey. Weighted mean rating (WMR) and manual content analysis were used to rank and evaluate the collected data.

The findings of this study revealed bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, work-related stress and depression as the six most significant mental disorders (MDs) among the construction workforce and 30 causes for them. Moreover, 27 symptoms were related to the six most significant MDs, and sweating was the most significant symptom among them. Despite that, 16 DTs were found to be suitable in mitigating the causes for the most significant MDs.

There are numerous studies conducted on the application of DTs to construction operations. However, insufficient studies have been conducted focusing on the application of DTs in improving the mental health of workers at construction sites. This study can thus influence the use of DTs for tackling the common causes for MDs by bringing a new paradigm to the construction industry.

This study aims to examine the mediating role of online compulsive buying in the association between excessive use of social networking sites (SNS) and financial well-being among Chinese young adults.

A sample of 539 SNS users and active online shoppers (M age = 20.32 years, SD age = 2.11) completed an online survey questionnaire measure of excessive use of SNS, online compulsive buying and financial well-being. Covariance based-structural equation modelling was used to assess the measurement model and the proposed mediation model.

Results indicated that excessive use of SNS was positively related to online compulsive buying behaviour and financial anxiety. Also, the results showed that online compulsive buying mediated the positive relationship between excessive use of SNS and financial anxiety.

Several implications were suggested and discussed to enhance the levels of financial well-being among youths by tackling their problematic behaviour such as excessive SNS usage and online compulsive buying.

The findings of this study contribute to the limited body of knowledge in the area of financial well-being and further improves our understanding of the effect of the excessive use of SNS on financial well-being and the mechanism behind it.

Compulsive usage of mobile applications may have a negative effect on people’s health and social interaction. Past studies have indicated that personality traits were related to compulsive usage of technologies, but most of them have explored the factors from the system and interface design perspectives, specifically. The purpose of this paper is to explore how the Big Five personality traits, materialism, and external locus of control affect compulsive mobile application usage, and examines how compulsive usage impacts technostress.

The present study proposes a framework based on Big Five personality traits and related literature. The author collected a total of 546 valid responses to the online survey, and the author examined the 18 proposed hypotheses using SmartPLS software.

The results show that neuroticism, extraversion, materialism, and external locus of control have significant effects on compulsive usage of mobile social applications. In addition, agreeableness, materialism, and external locus of control significantly influence compulsive usage of mobile game applications. Compulsive usage (of both mobile social apps and mobile games), materialism, and external locus of control all have a positive, direct impact on technostress.

This study offers mobile app design companies and educational institutions a understanding of the social problems caused by the misuse of mobile devices, helping them to prevent the increase of the negative influences of such misuse.

The primary value of this paper lies in providing a better understanding of the influence of personality traits on the compulsive use of mobile apps and technostress.