The longitudinal association between anxiety and Internet addiction in adolescence: the moderating effect of classroom extraversion

Stavropoulos, V, Gomez, R, Steen, E, Beard, C, Liew, L and Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, 2017. The longitudinal association between anxiety and Internet addiction in adolescence: the moderating effect of classroom extraversion. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6 (2), pp. 237-247. ISSN 2062-5871

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Abstract

Background and aims: The risk effect of anxiety on addictive behaviors, including Internet addiction (IA), has repeatedly been highlighted in the international literature. However, there is a lack of longitudinal studies examining this association in relation to proximal context effects, particularly in adolescence. Such findings would shed light on potential age- and proximal context-related variations in the anxiety–IA association that could better inform IA prevention and intervention initiatives. Methods: In this study, 648 adolescents, embedded in 34 classrooms, were assessed at the age of 16 and again at the age of 18 to examine the effect of anxiety on IA behaviors in relation to the
average level of classroom extraversion. IA was assessed with the Internet Addiction Test (Young, 1998), anxiety with the relevant subscale of the Symptom Checklist 90 – Revised (Derogatis & Savitz, 1999) and classroom extraversion with the synonymous subscale of the Five Factor Questionnaire (Asendorpf & van Aken, 2003). A three-level hierarchical linear model was calculated. Results: The present findings demonstrated that: (a) higher levels of anxiety were significantly associated with higher IA behaviors, (b) the strength of this association did not vary over time (between 16 and 18 years old), and (c) however, it tended to weaken within classrooms higher in extraversion. Discussion: This
study indicated that the contribution of individual IA risk factors might differently unfold within different contexts.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Behavioral Addictions
Creators:	Stavropoulos, V., Gomez, R., Steen, E., Beard, C., Liew, L. and Griffiths, M.D.
Publisher:	Akadémiai Kiadó
Date:	June 2017
Volume:	6
Number:	2
ISSN:	2062-5871
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1556/2006.6.2017.026 DOI
Rights:	© 2017 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Jill Tomkinson
Date Added:	24 May 2017 09:53
Last Modified:	30 Jun 2017 15:47
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/30783

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