Life Events And Social Support Among Medical College Students With Different Types Of Internet Addiction

ObjectiveInternet has reshaped our lifestyle, leading to dozens of inevitable negative results. A social phenomenon, Internet Addiction, has been placed great emphasis on both by researchers and media. Such phenomenon can be divided into different types which mainly include internet game addiction, cyber-relationship addiction, and information overload. There are only a few of investigations focusing on the features of each type, among which, consistent conclusions could hardly be received. According to existing investigations, the phenomenon of internet addiction may lead to frustration in the aspects of achievement, social function, and interpersonal relationship. There are 31.8% of Chinese users at the age of 18 to 24, who are mainly college students. Were they overly involved into cyberspace, it would be a great waste of social costs. According to buffer theory of social support in social psychology, the positive effects of social support would be dominant for people under high-pressure circumstances. It is assumed that the phenomenon of internet addiction appears when social support is dysfunctional during stressful period. This research took medical college students as subjects in order to investigate the differences of life events and social support between groups with higher and lower tendency of different types of internet addiction for the purpose of coming up with effective strategies to prevent such phenomenon and give proper intervention to it.SubjectsFive-year medical undergraduates from 15 classes were randomly selected as subjects by cluster sampling method. All the subjects participated in the survey, and 396 effective questionnaires were taken back. The recovery rate was 90.2%. Among the subjects, there were 152 male (38.4%) and 244 female (61.6%). The mean age of them was (21.66±1.74) years old.Methods1. Inventories for surveyDifferent Types of Internet Addiction Scale for Undergraduates was formed by Doctor Yang Wenjiao and Professor Zhou Zhijin from Huazhong University of Science and Technology according to the conception of internet addiction. The scale involves three subscales, namely, internet game addiction, cyber-relationship addiction, and information overload. In the research, subjects whose scores of the three subscales surpassed 25, 19, 19, respectively, were regarded as gaining higher tendency in the corresponding type of internet addiction, while subjects whose scores were less than 10, 7, 11, respectively, were considered to be with lower tendency in the relevant type of internet addiction.Adolescent Self-Rating Life Events Cheek List is a self-evaluation scale, being used for assessment of intensity of life events experienced by adolescents, especially college students. Six factors, namely, interpersonal relationship, study pressure, punishment, loss, heath and other are involved in the list. The time limitation is 1 year in the research.Social Support Rating Scale (SSRS) includes objective social support, subjective social support, and the utilization of social support. According to the actual status of college student, the scale was revised in some questions. In question NO.4, "colleague" was replaced by "student". In question NO.5, "lover" was the substitute for "couple", meanwhile, "daughter" was deleted. In question NO.6 and NO.7, "spouse" was changed to "lover" and "parents" was added.2. TestingDuring the period between 10^th March and 25^th April 2007, made appointments with the subjects by class and tested them together under the same instructions.3. StatisticsThe software of SPSS13.0 was used for statistical data analysis.ResultsAs for internet game addiction, there were significant differences in the aspects of study pressure, punishment and others of life events between groups with high and low tendency (P<0.05 or P<0.01). In comparison with low tendency group [(10.62±2.44), (22.85±3.46), (7.92±1.58) respectively], high tendency group had lower objective and subjective social support and availability [(9.36±2.53), (19.95±3.48), (7.30±1.02) respectively], the differences were statistically significant (P<0.01). When it came to cyber-relationship addiction, it was noticeable that groups with high and low tendency were quite different in all the aspects of life events (P<0.05 or P<0.01). Lower objective and subjective social support could be observed in high tendency group [(8.38±3.57) and (18.69±3.25)], when compared with that of low tendency group [(10.66±2.14) and (23.12±3.18)]. The differences were also statistically significant (P<0.05 or P<0.01). As far as information overload was concerned, remarkable differences between groups with high and low tendency could only be noticed in the aspects of loss and others of life events (P<0.05). Low tendency group (22.87±2.98) scored higher than high tendency group did in subjective social support (21.75±3.33). The difference was statistically significant (P<0.05).Conclusions1. There are a certain proportion of medical college students potentially addicted to different types of internet addiction.2. High tendency group of internet game addiction might get the sense of achievement to compensate self-esteem lost in study and punishment when social support is dysfunctional.3. High tendency group of cyber-relationship addiction might be involved into the cyber-relationship for compensation of social support, in order to relieve themselves from life stress.4. High tendency group of information overload could not feel enough social support subjectively and turn to seek compensation of loss by surfing on the internet or downloading information.