| The Internet is becoming an integral part of daily lives of youths in many parts of the world. The purpose of this thesis is to study the motives of Internet usage among school-going youths in Malaysia and the impact on Internet addiction by the motives, as well as the influence by parents and peers. To the best knowledge of the researcher, there has been no study conducted to date on Internet usage, which integrates both the influence of parents and peers. A modified Uses and Gratifications model comprising of Internet motives, parents, peers and Internet addiction is proposed. Furthermore, no large-scale systematic study of Internet usage and addiction has been conducted in Malaysia to date, though many such studies had been conducted in other countries.;The sample of this thesis consisted of 1,608 school students between the ages of 15--17 year-old sampled randomly in Malaysia. Exploratory factor analysis was used to extract the Internet motives. It was found that entertainment, social-interaction, eroticism, information surveillance and product-related information form the major Internet motivations of school-going children in Malaysia. Structural Equation Modelling was used to test the study hypotheses. Results found that the modified model explained 52.6% of Internet addiction. According to the findings, parents reduced their children's entertainment, social-interaction, erotic motivations as well as Internet addiction. Friends' increased online entertainment and social-interaction motivations but have no direct influences on online erotic motivations and Internet addiction. Implications for families, research, theory, policy, and education are discussed. |
