Social anxiety moderates the links between excessive chatting and compulsive Internet use
File(s)
Published version
Author(s)
Van Zalk, Nejra
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Excessive online chatting can lead to unwanted consequences such as compulsive Internetuse over time. Not all adolescents use chatting for the same purpose, however, and these links may not be as pronounced for socially anxious adolescents as they likely communicate with others online in order to compensate for offline social inadequacies. The current study investigated whether social anxiety moderated the links between excessive chatting and compulsive Internet use over time. Using a sample of 523 early adolescents (269 girls; Mage= 14.00) from a 3-wave longitudinal study, the links between excessive chatting and compulsive Internet use were investigated via manifest autoregressive models, and moderating effects of social anxiety were tested via multiple-group comparison procedures. The results showed bidirectional links between excessive chatting and compulsive Internet use from Time 2–Time 3, as excessive chatting predicted more symptoms of compulsive Internet use, whereas compulsive Internet use predicted more excessive chatting –over and above the effects of gender. These links were present for adolescents low on social anxiety, but they were largely missing for highly socially anxious adolescents. Thus, social anxiety may have protective effects for early adolescents who spend too much time chatting online, as it may help reduce the risk of developing symptoms of compulsive Internet use.
Date Issued
2016-10-01
Date Acceptance
2016-10-01
Citation
Cyberpsychology-Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace, 2016, 10 (3)
ISSN
1802-7962
Publisher
Masaryk University
Journal / Book Title
Cyberpsychology-Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace
Volume
10
Issue
3
Copyright Statement
© 2016 The Author(s). This article is available open access articles licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 4.0 International License which permits unrestricted, non-commercial use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited. The author of the work thus grants Cyberpsychology: Journal of Psychosocial Research on Cyberspace gratuitous non-exclusive license to use the work as specified in licence terms which are available (https://cyberpsychology.eu/about/submissions#copyrightNotice)
Identifier
http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000399972700003&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=1ba7043ffcc86c417c072aa74d649202
Subjects
Social Sciences
Psychology, Multidisciplinary
Psychology
social anxiety
excessive chatting
compulsive Internet use
synchronous communication
early adolescence
ONLINE COMMUNICATION
COLLEGE-STUDENTS
PEER RELATIONS
ADOLESCENTS
ADDICTION
LONELINESS
SHYNESS
USAGE
ASSOCIATIONS
FRIENDSHIPS
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
UNSP 3