Research ReportExcessive Internet Use and its association with negative experiences: Quasi-validation of a short scale in 25 European countries
Introduction
Problematic Internet use has been a growing concern for more than two decades and, although there is a little of agreement about the definition of the concept, the scientific community consents that the problem exists and requires further exploration (APA., 2013). Internationally comparable epidemiological information on prevalence in different populations would contribute to a better understanding of the phenomenon, and that has been identified as an important knowledge gap by the American Psychiatric Association (APA, 2013). In this sense, research on children and adolescents should be especially encouraged as they are in many ways a vulnerable group of Internet users (Kuss, van Rooij, Shorter, Griffiths, & van de Mheen, 2013). Many young people use the Internet intensively and utilize some of the most time-consuming applications, such as online games (Livingstone, Haddon, Gorzig, & Ólafsson, 2011). Moreover, their developmental stage may imply easier habit-forming and poor judgment about the risks associated with Internet overuse (Lopez-Leon & Raley, 2013).
To date, over 30 scales have been developed and used to measure some form of problematic Internet use and few have been validated for discriminatory needs and/or different national populations (Lortie & Guitton, 2013). The scales reflect a variety of conceptual approaches to Excessive Internet Use: some aim to measure general Internet addiction while others focus on online gaming specifically. The shortest scale consists of 6 items while the longest has 44 items. Using scales with a large number of items is, however, often impractical in large epidemiological surveys. Young’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT) is one of the most commonly used and culturally validated tools to measure Internet addiction. This scale was, however, developed in the late 1990s (Young, 1998, Young, 1999) and does not reflect recent online developments, such as the enormous popularity of Facebook and the rapid proliferation of smart, handheld devices. To our knowledge, IAT is also the only available scale to measure general Internet addiction that has been designed for discriminatory needs; i.e. it provides a cut-off point distinguishing addicted Internet users from those who have no such problem. As a long scale of 20 items – with an arbitrarily set threshold among non-problematic, problematic, and addicted users – it is not a tool that can be easily used in large-scale population surveys. A short screening test would be more appropriate for this purpose. A recent attempt to validate Short Problematic Internet Use Test provides a short measure but does not specify the threshold between problematic and non-problematic Internet users (Siciliano et al., 2015). Our aim in this study is to look at a short instrument suitable to measure adolescents’ Excessive Internet Use in large representative samples and see if it is possible to use it for discriminatory purposes.
Section snippets
Background
We work with the term Excessive Internet Use (EIU) because the question of whether the extreme forms of Internet overuse can be considered an addiction has not yet been adequately answered. The lack of agreement in terms of definition and terminology is clearly reflected in the tools used to measure the phenomenon: the scales aim to assess Internet addiction (Young, 1999); problematic Internet use (Thatcher & Goolam, 2005); or pathological (Gentile, 2009) or compulsive (Meerkerk, Van Den
Data
The data comes from the EU Kids Online II survey conducted in 2010 in 25 European countries. The survey interviewed about 1000 children aged 9–16 and one of their parents in each country (N = 25,142). A random stratified sampling ensured the representativity of the samples at the national level and a fully identical methodology in all countries guaranteed the cross-country comparability of the data (for more details on methodology, see Görzig, 2012). The questions on Excessive Internet Use were
Results
The descriptive statistics of all of the variables are summarized in Table 1. The EIU scale was one-dimensional with good internal consistency both in individual countries and overall (see Table 1 for complete results of factor and reliability analysis). It was positively skewed with the vast majority of the sample obtaining the minimum possible score and, thus, showing no signs of Excessive Internet Use.
Table 2 shows the predicted EIU scores that are expected to double the probability of the
Discussion
In order to establish a cut-off point distinguishing excessive Internet users from those with no such problem, we examined the ability of the EIU scale to predict the double probability of various risk factors and the negative consequences of Internet addiction in the sample of European adolescents. It appears that an average score of 2.6 on the EIU scale doubles the probability of behavioral and school problems, online risks, and various psychological difficulties, such as depressive or
Conclusions
The EIU scale is a short instrument suitable for use in large epidemiological surveys to provide a broad assessment of Internet overuse that might put individuals at risk. It has similar psychometric qualities across Europe. In adolescence, Excessive Internet Use may be a symptom of a broader set of behavioral problems or psychological difficulties. The EIU scale provides a way of assessing a broad range of potentially problematic Internet use without asking specifically about particular
Acknowledgements
This article draws on the work of the EU Kids Online network funded by the European Commission (DG Information Society) Safer Internet plus Programme (project code SIP-KEP-321803); see www.eukidsonline.net. The authors also acknowledge the support of the VITOVIN project (CZ.1.07/2.3.00/20.0184), which is co-financed by the European Social Fund and the state budget of Czech Republic, and the support of the Czech Science Foundation (GA15-19221S).
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