Internet addiction has become a serious behavioral health problem in Asia. However, there are no up-to-date country comparisons. The Asian Adolescent Risk Behavior Survey (AARBS) screens and compares the prevalence of Internet behaviors and addiction in adolescents in six Asian countries. A total of 5,366 adolescents aged 12-18 years were recruited from six Asian countries: China, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, and the Philippines. Participants completed a structured questionnaire on their Internet use in the 2012-2013 school year. Internet addiction was assessed using the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and the Revised Chen Internet Addiction Scale (CIAS-R). The variations in Internet behaviors and addiction across countries were examined. The overall prevalence of smartphone ownership is 62%, ranging from 41% in China to 84% in South Korea. Moreover, participation in online gaming ranges from 11% in China to 39% in Japan. Hong Kong has the highest number of adolescents reporting daily or above Internet use (68%). Internet addiction is highest in the Philippines, according to both the IAT (5%) and the CIAS-R (21%). Internet addictive behavior is common among adolescents in Asian countries. Problematic Internet use is prevalent and characterized by risky cyberbehaviors.
This study employed the Model of Technology Preference (MTP) to explain the relationship of the variables as the antecedents of behavioral intention to adopt a social networking site (SNS) for communication. Self-administered questionnaires were distributed to SNS account users using paper-based and web-based surveys that led to 514 valid responses. The data were analyzed using structural equation modeling (SEM). The results show that two out of three attributes of the attribute-based preference (ATRP) affect attitude-based preference (ATTP). The data support the hypotheses that perceived enjoyment and social presence are predictors of ATTP. In this study, the findings further indicated that ATTP has no relationship with the behavioral intention of using SNS, but it has a relationship with the attitude of using SNS. SNS development should provide features that ensure enjoyment and social presence for users to communicate instead of using the traditional face-to-face method of communication.
This study investigated the role of parental and peer mediation in young adolescents' engagement in risk-taking in social networking sites (SNSs). A survey conducted in Malaysia with 469 SNS users aged 13-14 revealed that control-based parental mediation can cause boomerang effects, making young adolescents more inclined to taking risks in SNSs. While discussion-based parental mediation was found to be negatively related to young adolescents' befriending strangers in SNSs, it did not reduce privacy risks. Findings also suggested that peer influence could result in undesirable outcomes. In particular, the more young adolescents talked about Internet-related issues with peers, the more likely they were to disclose personally identifiable information on SNSs.
There has been increased research examining the psychometric properties on the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) in different populations. This population-based study examined the psychometric properties and measurement invariance of the IAT in adolescents from three Asian countries. In the Asian Adolescent Risk Behavior Survey (AARBS), 2,535 secondary school students (55.9% girls) aged 12-18 years from Hong Kong (n=844), Japan (n=744), and Malaysia (n=947) completed a survey in 2012-2013 school year. A nested hierarchy of hypotheses concerning the IAT cross-country invariance was tested using multigroup confirmatory factor analyses. Replicating past findings in Hong Kong adolescents, the construct of the IAT is best represented by a second-order three-factor structure in Malaysian and Japanese adolescents. Configural, metric, scalar, and partial strict factorial invariance was established across the three samples. No cross-country differences on Internet addiction were detected at the latent mean level. This study provided empirical support for the IAT as a reliable and factorially stable instrument, and valid to be used across Asian adolescent populations.
Social networking sites (SNSs) can provide cybercriminals with various opportunities, including gathering of user data and login credentials to enable fraud, and directing of users toward online locations that may install malware onto their devices. The techniques employed by such cybercriminals can include clickbait (text or video), advertisement of nonexistent but potentially desirable products, and hoax competitions/giveaways. This study aimed to identify risk factors associated with falling victim to these malicious techniques. An online survey was completed by 295 Malaysian undergraduate students, finding that more than one-third had fallen victim to SNS scams. Logistic regression analysis identified several victimization risk factors including having higher scores in impulsivity (specifically cognitive complexity), using fewer devices for SNSs, and having been on an SNS for a longer duration. No reliable model was found for vulnerability to hoax valuable gift giveaways and "friend view application" advertising specifically, but vulnerability to video clickbait was predicted by lower extraversion scores, higher levels of openness to experience, using fewer devices, and being on an SNS for a longer duration. Other personality traits were not associated with either overall victimization susceptibility or increased risk of falling victim to the specific techniques. However, age approached significance within both the video clickbait and overall victimization models. These findings suggest that routine activity theory may be particularly beneficial in understanding and preventing SNSs scam victimization.
This article designed and tested a cognitive behavioral-based preventive intervention program for youths with problematic Internet use (PIU) behavior. The program is the Psychological Intervention Program-Internet Use for Youth (PIP-IU-Y). A cognitive-based therapy approach was adopted. A total of 45 secondary students from four schools completed the intervention program that was conducted in a group format by registered school counselors. Three sets of self-reported data on Problematic Internet Use Questionnaire (PIUQ), Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS), and Depression Anxiety Stress Scale (DASS) were collected at three time points: 1 week before the intervention, immediately after the last intervention session, and 1 month after the intervention. Paired t-test results showed that the program was effective in preventing negative progression into more serious Internet addiction stages, and reducing anxiety and stress and interaction phobia of the participants. The effect was evident immediately at the end of the intervention session and was maintained 1 month after the intervention. This study is among the first to develop and test a preventive intervention program for youths with PIU. The effectiveness of our program in preventing negative progression of PIU and its symptoms in problematic users has led us to postulate that the program will also prevent normal users from developing serious symptoms. The majority of the intervention programs reported in the literature merely tailor to those who already have problems.
Social media has taken an important place in the routine life of people. Every single second, users from all over the world are sharing interests, emotions, and other useful information that leads to the generation of huge volumes of user-generated data. Profiling users by extracting attribute information from social media data has been gaining importance with the increasing user-generated content over social media platforms. Meeting the user's satisfaction level for information collection is becoming more challenging and difficult. This is because of too much noise generated, which affects the process of information collection due to explosively increasing online data. Social profiling is an emerging approach to overcome the challenges faced in meeting user's demands by introducing the concept of personalized search while keeping in consideration user profiles generated using social network data. This study reviews and classifies research inferring users social profile attributes from social media data as individual and group profiling. The existing techniques along with utilized data sources, the limitations, and challenges are highlighted. The prominent approaches adopted include Machine Learning, Ontology, and Fuzzy logic. Social media data from Twitter and Facebook have been used by most of the studies to infer the social attributes of users. The studies show that user social attributes, including age, gender, home location, wellness, emotion, opinion, relation, influence, and so on, still need to be explored. This review gives researchers insights of the current state of literature and challenges for inferring user profile attributes using social media data.
Workplace cyberbullying (WCB) is a new form of hostility in organizations in which information technology is used as a means to bully employees. The objective of this study is to determine the association between WCB and the interpersonal deviance (ID) of victims through parallel mediation through the ineffectual silence of employees and emotional exhaustion (EE). Conservation of resource (COR) theory and affective events theory were used as the study's guiding framework, and data were drawn from 351 white-collar employees who were employed in a variety of industries-such as banking, telecommunications sector, education, health care, insurance, and consultancy-in Lahore, Pakistan. The results show that ineffectual silence negatively mediated the relationship between cyberbullying and deviance, decreasing the level of deviance of employees who used silence as a coping mechanism. EE, however, positively mediated the relationship between cyberbullying and deviance. This means that when employees felt emotionally overwhelmed they retaliated by engaging in deviant behaviors and acting as a bully toward colleagues. Drawing on the COR theory and the affective events theory, the findings show that WCB has an impact on ID. From a practical standpoint, the study reveals that WCB can lead to ID and it also may associate with large financial costs and workplace disruptions. Thus, organizations should establish a culture that prevent employees from engaging in WCB and adopt practices of prevention and intervention because it is not only harmful to the employees but also to the organization.
This study investigates the mediating role of identity confusion and materialism in the relationship between social networking site (SNS) excessive usage and online compulsive buying among young adults. A total of 501 SNS users aged 17 to 23 years (M = 19.68, SD = 1.65) completed an online survey questionnaire. A serial multiple mediator model was developed and hypotheses were tested using structural equation modeling. The results showed that excessive young adult SNS users had a higher tendency toward compulsive buying online. This was partly because they experienced higher identity confusion and developed higher levels of materialism. Targeted psychological interventions seeking to gradually increase identity clarity to buffer the detrimental effects of SNS usage and identity confusion in young adults are suggested.
The exploration of underlying mechanisms leading to the development of smartphone addiction has been limited, with only a few studies incorporating theories to provide explanations. Drawing upon the Dual Systems Model, this study tested the hypothesis that the reflective system of self-regulation would mediate the relation between the reflexive system of impulsivity and narcissism, and smartphone addiction in a sample of 298 undergraduate students. Participants completed a self-administrated web-based questionnaire containing measures of impulsivity (the Barratt Impulsiveness Scale), narcissism (the Narcissistic Personality Inventory), self-regulation (the Self-Regulation Scale), and smartphone addiction (the Smartphone Addiction Inventory). The findings from structural equation modeling revealed that self-regulation served as a significant mediator between impulsivity and smartphone addiction, as well as between narcissism and smartphone addiction. These findings offer insights that can contribute to the development of interventions and strategies that target impulsivity and narcissism by enhancing self-regulation skills.