Though one might joke about their addiction to websites like Facebook or twitter as they struggle to stay offline in class or at work, a study shows people with Internet addiction have high levels of hostility not only offline but online as well.
A 2008 study preformed at eight colleges in Taiwan, tested four dimensions of hostility on and offline and showed that college students with Internet addiction had an increased score on expressive hostility. The study also showed that online gaming and chatting are aggravators of aggressive behavior.
“Previous reports have demonstrated the association between Internet addiction and aggressive behavior among adolescents in the real world. The results from this experiment demonstrated that subjects with Internet addiction have higher hostility not only in real life but also online,” said researchers.
A total of 2,262 students with an almost even number of men and women participants, took 3 distinct surveys that measured levels of Internet addiction and hostility/depression both on and offline. Researchers assessed the differences between the scores on fours dimensions of hostility including cognition, affection, expression and suppression.
Answers to question followed formats similar to, “If some hits me, I hit back” or “I was told more then once that I spent to much time on the Internet.”
Online chatting and gaming through the internet play large roles in Internet addiction. Results showed that people devoting most online time to chatting show high levels of hostility online more then any other Internet activity. Online gamers had high levels of hostility both in the real world and online.
Another interesting result that researchers found was that for the general public, hostility decreased when getting online. Researchers believe that “relaxation and entertainment are the usual motives for using the Internet.”
Previous reports showed that people with high levels of hostility are at high risk of Internet addiction. Researchers believe that this preexisting hostility might make people addicted to the Internet resistant attenuating effects of casual internet usage.
Researchers said the survey was heavily based off many pre-existing theories of psychology such as the social learning theory, the cognitive neo association model and social cognitions that all explain “the association between media-violence viewing and aggressive behavior.”
Limitations researchers noted were that the results are based solely on information from college students and that study could not confirm an informal relationship between hostility and use of the Internet.
“Although the mechanism for the association could not be confirmed in present study, the results might suggest that more attention should be paid to the effect of the Internet on hostility among college students with Internet addiction.”
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