Separation Of Young People - Personalized, Relationship Between The Imaginary Audience And Its Use Of The Internet

The Internet offers the adolescents an exciting and colorful world. Meanwhile, the problem of pathological Internet use (PIU) among adolescents is becoming more and more serious. It is believed that both the individual factors of the adolescents and the functions of Internet are related to the PIU. So research the relations of the adolescents' psychology characteristics and their internet use will deepen the understanding of adolescents' PIU. Separation-individuation is a very important developmental task that is presumed to have significant adaptational consequences for adolescents. And the imaginary audience ideation is considered to server defensive and restitutive functions in separation-individuation process. The present study conducted a questionnaire survey of Chinese adolescents (n=332) to examine the relations between the separation-individuation, imaginary audience, preference of the Internet services and PIU among Chinese adolescents.The research results indicate that (1) the gender and the grade have the interactive effects on self-involvement and peer enmeshment, there are influences of gender and grade on dependency denial, rejection expectancy and teacher enmeshment, and there are gender differences in healthy separation and grade differences in the teacher idealization; (2) the components of the separation-individuation are related with the imaginary audience exclude peer enmeshment, dependency denial and healthy separation; (3) there are influence of gender on the preference of the Internet recreation, the social service and the PIU. and the gender and the grade have the interactive effects on the preference of the Internet business service; (4) both separation anxiety and rejection expectancy have direct positive effects on the PIU, engulfment anxiety have direct positive effect on the PIU among the female whereas such effect is not significant in the male; (5) the imaginary audience has a direct positive effect on PIU; (6) both the preference of the Internet recreation service and the social service have a direct effect on PIU; (7) both self-involvement and separation anxiety have indirect positive effects on PIU through the imaginary audience ideation; (8) both engulfment anxiety and peer enmeshment have indirect positive effect on PIU through the preference of the internet recreation service and the preference of the internet social service respectively.The research results show that adolescents' PIU relate with their special developmental task and psychology characteristics. During the separation-individuation process, the parents-adolescents relationships are becoming loose. And with the rise of the self-awareness, adolescents are faced with the challenge of forming an independent self. So on one hand, they wish to keep a distance with their parents and other persons, and on the other hand, they are worried about this relationship distance. This contradictory relationship needs makes they are vulnerable to the internet recreational service and social service, and become the pathological Internet user. And their special ideation, imaginary audience can help they adapt to the new social roles more easy. But a high imaginary audience could be the drive of some deviant behaviors, for example, the PIU. So during the special physical and psychological developmental period, separation-individuation, the patents should give the adolescents more supports. The teachers have the duties to help their students to create a harmonious, friendly and tolerant class atmosphere. So that adolescents could feel more supports and attention from the real world instead from the virtual world.