Research - In this assignment, we are trying to find the factors and effects of online addiction for university students.

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Effects of the online addiction in students

1.0        INTRODUCTION

1.1        BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Since , an American organization for science , makes the Internet open to whole society, the usage of the world Internet had become commonplace. The improvement of living condition provide the prerequisite for people to surf the Internet. Today, Internet have already connect with 60,000 network. E-mail could arrive more than 150 countries. The estimated population of  is 1.97 billion as of 30 June 2010. ( World Internet Users and Population Stats, 2010) At the same time, Internet penetrated into every field. University students, such as  students, could use the Internet provided by the university. The internet has positive aspects include convenient, informative and resourceful, but for the excessive internet users, these benefits turn out to be negative. Some student spend half day or more time to surf the internet instead of go sports, join parties or even sleep. For better or worse, the word “online addiction” came to our life based on its superficial similarity to common addictions such as smoking, drinking, and gambling. Online addiction is the “Pandoras box” which the network brings to people. However, what is online addiction?

Online addiction, the same as Internet addiction, Internet Addiction Disorder, Compulsive Internet Use, Computer Addiction and Internet Dependence. All of these are essentially terms that have been applied to those that “spend excessive amounts of the time online at the expense of and to the detriment of other aspects of their lives.”(Internet Addiction, 2006) “Symptoms often identified were a preoccupation with the internet, an inability to control use, hiding or lying about the behavior, psychological withdrawal, and continued use despite consequences of the behavior.” (Young, 2007) We could say, online addiction is a kind of psychosis that strong desire and repeatedly using the Internet to get the satisfaction or to avoid the discontent.

The activities of online addiction always include the relationships, gaming, information searching and money. Relationships meanings students spend a lot of time to stay in chat rooms, start the online friendships replace the real-life friends. Gaming is those use computer to play multi-user games such as online-game and Lan game. People who compulsive search the information include sex is also called online addiction. At the same time, online gambling is also become a problem and is quickly moving up the scale to addiction in university students. (Young, 1998)

Excessive internet use is a more common problem in university students. Those who behave with internet addiction tendencies always “couldn’t go asleep because worried about the e-mail is arrived or not”, “get up at 3a.m to the toilet and check the e-mail incidentally”, “forget eat and sleep when surfing online”, “don’t go to toilet until waiting for download the software”, “want to click all the words that have the underline”. Even some people feel boring, empty, and joyless when they are off-line and these feelings goes away once they are back on-line.

Anyway, online addiction become to influence the students’ life and learning. In this assignment, we are trying to find the factors and effects of online addiction for  university students.

1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT

Nowadays, with the development of technology, Internet has become an important part in people’s life. They can do anything via Internet, like shopping, chat overboard that lead to many  students stay in their rooms instead of go outside to join club, social activities.

1.3 RESEARCH OBJECTIVE

1)        To find the effects of the online addiction in  students.

2)        To find out the factors that lead the  students addict Internet.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1)        What are the effects of the online addiction in  students?

2)        What are the factors that lead the  students addict Internet?

2.0        LITERATURE REVIEW

2.1        JOURNALS

JOURNAL 1: Internet Addition and Psychopathology

This study examined the relationships between university students’ Internet addiction and psychopathology in Turkey. At first, the author Mustafa KOÇ(2011) state that the symptoms of addiction often identified were a preoccupation with the internet, an inability to control use, hiding or lying about the behavior, psychological withdrawal, and continued use despite consequences of the behavior. Then he shows us the internet has positive aspects including informative, convenient, resourceful and fun, but for the excessive internet users, these benefits turn out to be useless. Most individuals use the internet without negative consequences and even benefit from it, but some individuals do suffer from negative impacts. Later he said that excessive internet use is a more common problem in Turkey, so after several results of research he find addicted Internet use was significantly correlated psychiatric symptoms. Psychologists and educators are aware of the potential negative impact from addicted use and related physical and psychological problems. Users who spend a significant amount of time online often experience academic, relational, economic, and occupational problems, as well as physical disorders. 3Internet use with an increase in psychological difficulties such as depression and loneliness. Addicted users were more likely than no addicted Internet users to be depressed. This study showed that addicts internet used the Internet more often when they were depressed than no addicts. At last, he got the conclusion that university students in Turkey, will lead internet use because of many factors such as difficulty adapting to life away from home and underlying psychological problems. These includes free Internet access, huge blocks of unstructured time, newly experienced freedom from parental intervention, no monitoring of what they express online, full encouragement from faculty members for Internet usage.

(Mustafa KOÇ, The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology, INTERNET ADDICTION AND PSYCHOPATOLOGY , volume 10 Issue 1 page143-148, January 2011)   

JOURNAL 2: Understanding Online Gaming Addiction and Treatment Issues for Adolescents

This study was carried out to explores emergence of online gaming addiction and its impact on individuals and families. And this paper also reviews the nature of online lingams and what makes them addictive among some players. Firstly, the author KIMBERLY YOUNG(2009) stated that the situation of online gaming addiction and how seriously the addiction is by some example. Then he found that the gamers lying or hiding gaming use for example, some gamers spend days and nights online. They do not eat, sleep or take a shower because of the game. They lie to family and friends about what they are really doing on the computer. The gamers also loss of interest in other activities, 3 as the addiction progress grow, gamers become less interested in hobbies or activities that they used to enjoy and become more fascinated with living inside the game. Some gamers become social withdrawal, they will spend more time alone in front of the computer only prefer making friends in the game; they become more defensiveness and anger and using gaming as an escape which is the game become a safe place means to cope with life's problem and the gamers become defensive and angry when forced to go without it. They often want to be the best at the game, in order to grow in game, they will continue use despite its consequence. As the addiction develops, adolescent gaming addicts may experience symptoms of withdrawal, which include anxiety, depression, irritability, trembling, hands, restlessness, and obsessive thinking or fantasizing about the Internet. At last, the author shows us some good and effective way to defense the gaming addiction like set time on playing time, push for educational type game instead and so on.

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(Kimberly. Young, The American Journal of Family Therapy, Understanding Online Gaming Addiction and Treatment Issues for Adolescents, 37:355-372, 2009 )

 

JOURNAL 3: internet addiction: the emergence of a new clinical disorder

This study was investigated the existence of Internet addiction and the extent of problems caused by such potential misuse. From this study, the author Kimberly S. Young (1996) did qualitative analyses suggests significant behavioral and functional usage differences between the two groups in Internet users for this study. They found that people viewed the Internet as a useful resource tool and a medium for personal and business communication; ...

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