Topic > Internet for Entertainment: Impact of Internet Addiction

Index IntroductionThe Impact of Internet Use on LonelinessRelationship Between Loneliness and Internet AddictionConclusionReferencesIntroductionEveryone feels lonely from time to time when we have no one to sit next to at lunch, when we move to a new city or when no one has time for us on the weekend. Yet, in recent decades, this occasional feeling has become chronic for millions of people. Furthermore, technology has a significant impact on people's loneliness, especially the Internet. Additionally, most people are familiar with the term “Internet addiction.” That is to say, Internet addiction is one of the problems that people suffer from, especially the young generation. There are some studies on how technology affects people's social lives and what the role of Internet addiction is in loneliness. Research on loneliness levels conducted at Ankara University and Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts and a study conducted by Satoko Ezo and Masahiro Toda on Internet addiction of Japanese medical students can be shown as examples of studies. Additionally, research conducted by William A. and Brandi M. at the American University of Alabama has provided a couple of findings on the impact of the Internet on older adults, particularly when it comes to using the Internet for entertainment. In this article I will simultaneously analyze and compare my ideas and the results of studies on the impact of the Internet on people's lives. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essayThe impact of internet use on lonelinessIn the UK, 60% of young people aged 18-34 say they often feel lonely. In the United States, 46% of the entire population feels lonely on a regular basis. Major studies have shown that loneliness mostly affects people who don't know how to talk to people or how to behave around others. Loneliness is a bodily function like hunger. (Hawkley L. Cacioppo J. AoBM, 2010). Hunger makes us pay attention to our physical needs while loneliness makes us pay attention to our social needs. This means that nothing can protect us from loneliness because it is part of our biology. However, according to research conducted at the University of Alabama in the United States, information and communication technologies (ICT) have a positive impact on the social lives of older people (average age 84). The research methodology involved 8 weeks of training on the use of computers and the Internet to communicate with family and friends, mainly via Facebook and email. The frequency with which participants go online is measured. At the end of the period, participants were asked in 5 different frequencies (0-5): 0 coded as “Never”, 1-Once a month, 2-A few times during the period, 3-Several times in a month, 4 - About once a week, 5 - Several times a week. Participants were asked questions such as: “Has using the Internet allowed you to easily reach people?” or “Has how often you go online made you less isolated?” in order to measure how Internet use influenced the rate of loneliness, social isolation and quality of communication with others. The method worked well and illustrates positive results (William A. Anderson “The Impact of ICT” page 6). Relationship between Loneliness and Internet Addiction The results show that Internet use helped 95.7% of male participants decrease their rate of loneliness, while the percentage was 81.4% of female participants. According to Brandi M. McCullough, thewomen are more socially active than men because some participants believe that using the Internet has led to them not seeing enough people they feel close to. As the Internet is spreading around the world and becoming more available to many more people, it has caused a new type of addiction, called Internet addiction, which is a growing problem of modern life. This addiction causes symptoms of depression, irritability, and decreased social interaction and education (Shaghasemi, 2006). Encieh Sharifpoor, Mohammad Javad, and Afsaneh Mohammadzadeh conducted a study to determine the correlation between loneliness and depression with Internet addiction in young women from the city of Torbat-e-Jaam in Iran. In this illustrative research, 150 students were selected. Participants were asked to fill out three questionnaires such as “Young Internet Addiction Test”, “Lonelessness Scale” and “The Beck Depression Inventory”. The Youth Internet Addiction Test is developed by Kimberly Yung. It is based on the symptoms of Internet addiction diagnosis and the Likert scale. The Likert scale was developed by psychologist Rensis Likert. It is the most widely used approach to scaling responses in survey research ( Iowa State University 2010 ). The “Loneliness Scale” includes 38 questions, including three subscales of loneliness due to family relationships, loneliness due to friendship and actual signs of loneliness while “The Beck Depression Inventory” includes 21 questions to assess the severity of depression in adults and in adolescents. The use of the methodology on 150 female participants whose average age was 15/16 years gave positive results. The results showed that there is a positive and significant relationship between loneliness and Internet addiction. The researchers of the study say that loneliness occurs when there is a gap between the favorable relationship and those who feel too lonely, have low self-esteem caused by the lack of effective and favorable relationships. Furthermore, the study conducted in Türkiye by Ebru Oguz and Ozlem Cakir at Ankara University and Mimar Sinan University of Fine Arts showed significant results on this issue. The purpose of the study was to reveal the relationship between levels of loneliness and Internet addiction in teacher candidates. Participants were 347 teacher candidates attending the Pedagogical Training Program at Ankara University. In this study, researchers used the “Internet Addiction Scale” and the “UCLA Loneliness Scale.” The "Internet Addiction Scale", consisting of 26 items, was developed at Ankara University by Cakir, one of the University's students. The UCLA Lonenity Scale was developed at the University of California at Los Angeles to determine the emotion of loneliness and includes more than 40 items. Conclusion The research results do not show a significant difference based on variables such as marital status, age, employment status and duration of online stay. However, it shows very little difference in variables such as gender and Internet access. In conclusion, if we analyze the combination of the above research findings, Internet use has a significant impact on the social life of individuals. That is to say, using the Internet does not make a person socially isolated or suffer from loneliness. Although the use of the Internet reduces face to face communication between people close to us, our life has already become in the devices and if someone does not use the Internet at all the person will socially isolate himself because every person around him uses the same Internet and talk about the activities they have experienced on social media. However, excessive use of..