| Since the early 1990s, the growing availability of personal computers has enabled large segments of society to access the wonders of Internet technology. The extent to which the increasingly ubiquitous role of this technology in our culture has influenced mental health is an area of study only just beginning to emerge. Of interest is the growing phenomenon of individuals who become so engrossed with online computer activities that they forsake other important daily activities. Despite a multitude of reports on this phenomenon, currently referred to among professionals as Pathological Internet Use (PIU), there is currently little existing research that documents it within the context of mental health, particularly its prevalence and relationship to psychiatric disorders or personality variables. The current study concerns the development of an instrument for measuring the PIU construct that was administered to a sample of 1438 college students. It also presents an exploratory analysis of psychological health and personality variables for two groups of students (N = 50), one that endorsed high levels of PIU symptoms and a paired control group that endorsed normative levels of PIU symptoms. Differences between the two groups are discussed. |
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