CC BY
0DOI: 10.18137/RNU.HET.23.01.P.108
УДК 159.9.07
Судакова-Зотова Ю.А.,
Московский институт психоанализа
Изучение взаимосвязи между чертами личности и тяжестью интернет - зависимости у взрослых
Introduction. Modern people spend most of their time on the Internet, which replaces communication, shopping, print, scientific literature and fiction. The whole process leads to Internet addiction. Statistics show that 76 % of Russians have access to the World Wide Web. Russians are believed to spend the greatest number of hours online each day.
There is no accurate data on the number of people dependent on the Internet in Russia. However, there is a tendency to approach dangerous values. There is no broad sample for all age categories regarding Internet addiction in Russia. Existing studies
Московский институт психоанализа
focus mainly on young people. It is assumed that young people spend most of their time online.
The study focuses on the number of hours people spend online. Indeed, user activity is on the rise. The average person spends 6 hours and 43 minutes per day on the Internet.
It is not the time one spends on the Internet that matters, but how it is filled. Over-occupation with the World Wide Web can have negative mental health consequences. Such over-involvement leads to a loss of control, where people find it difficult to tear themselves away from the
Previously, Internet addiction was considered more of a problem for children and adolescents, but now the views of some researchers are changing. Internet access has been widespread for a long time and the average age of Internet users is rising.
Adults not previously familiar with the Internet are confronted with it and get accustomed to this environment because of the needs of work, because of the environment in which they communicate, spend their leisure time online. Adults are also attracted by the fact that in addition to information and communication, the Internet has recently become more and more of a marketplace (in the broad sense). There are up to 109.6 million Internet users in Russia. This figure far exceeds the number of underage populations [6, p. 9].
Internet addiction refers to the constant urge to be online and the lack of willpower to leave the World Wide Web. In 1994 this phenomenon was studied by C. Young, and a year later it was named by I. Goldberg.
Research in this area continues to this day. However, there is no consensus on Internet addiction. And both children and adults suffer from it. In particular, every sixth teenager and almost every fifth adult face this addiction, resorting to the help of specialists. And how many more people with it have not come to the attention of specialists [2, p. 90]!
© Судакова-Зотова Ю.А., 2023
ИЗУЧЕНИЕ ВЗАИМОСВЯЗИ МЕЖДУ ЧЕРТАМИ ЛИЧНОСТИ И ТЯЖЕСТЬЮ
ИНТЕРНЕТ - ЗАВИСИМОСТИ У ВЗРОСЛЫХ
СУДАКОВА-ЗОТОВА ЮЛИЯ АЛЕКСЕЕВНА Российская Федерация, Нижний Новгород
кандидат физико-математических наук, магистрант факультета психологии, Московский институт психоанализа. Сфера научных интересов: исследования в области современных информационных технологий в контексте их влияния на психологию личности. Автор 7 опубликованных научных работ. Электронная почта: [email protected]
IULIIA A. SUDAKOVA-ZOTOVA Nizhny Novgorod, Russian Federation
Ph.D. of Physico-mathematical Sciences, Master's student of Psychology Faculty, Moscow Institute of Psychoanalysis. Research interests: research in the field of modern information technologies in the context of their impact on personality psychology. Author of 7 published scientific works. E-mail address: [email protected]
Аннотация. Рассматривается проблема интернет-зависимости, акцентируется внимание на взаимосвязи между индивидуальными чертами личности и тяжестью интернет-зависимости. Представлены ход и результаты эмпирического исследования по данной теме, контингентом которого стали люди в возрасте от 25 до 60 лет разного социального статуса. Сделан вывод о правомерности предположения о том, что к верхней границе среднего возраста испытуемые менее склонны к развитию интернет-зависимости в связи с тем, что у них сформированы предпочтения, обусловленные большим количеством других интересов, о независимости результатов от пола испытуемых.
Ключевые слова: интернет-зависимость, интернет-пользователи, виртуальный мир, психологические проблемы.
Abstract. The problem of Internet addiction is considered, attention is focused on the relationship between individual personality traits and the severity of Internet addiction. The course and results of an empirical study on this topic are presented, the contingent of which was people aged 25 to 60 years of different social status. The conclusion is made about the validity of the assumption that by the upper limit of middle age, the subjects are less likely to develop Internet addiction due to the fact that they have formed preferences due to a large number of other interests, about the independence of the results from the gender of the subjects.
Keywords: Internet addiction, Internet users, Internet, virtual world, psychological problems, addiction.
Data and methodology. Statistics show that «Internet addiction develops in adults in 58 % of cases within one year, in 25 % of cases within six months and in 17 % of cases after one year of active computer usage» [5, p. 93]. They are attracted not only by games, as teenagers, but also online shopping, online casino, watching movies, various information and, of course, virtual communication.
Adults addicted to the Internet have family conflicts that often end in divorce. Those who gamble at online casinos have financial problems. Other scammers on the Internet are trying to deceive as many gullible citizens as possible and earn money on them.
Virtual communication replaces real communication. Here you can impersonate another person, use someone else's photo, make up a nickname. People who are shy by nature behave more confidently in social networks, their shyness disappears [3, p. 74]. Communicating on
the Internet can increase self-esteem and confidence [1, p. 74].
Women spend more time on the Internet than men, becoming dependent on social networks. Men spend a lot of time playing computer games.
The microsocial factors of Internet addiction include:
• dissatisfaction with the material situation;
• social problems;
• dissatisfaction in the family. People are often unaware of their
Internet addiction and do not pay attention to the problem. Only specialists can help.
People prone to Internet addiction are suspicious, aggressive, authoritarian and dependent. They can be very tough when defending their point of view. The other variant may also be characteristic of them, when they start to agree with everything. People with Internet addiction are characterized by the child-parent type of interpersonal relations. In
contrast, people who do not have such addiction have another variant of interpersonal relations - «adult-adult» [7, p. 120].
Internet addiction may develop schizophrenia because schizoid personalities easily escape from the real world to the virtual world [9, p. 75].
Internet addiction is mostly influenced by character accentuations. It is them that characterize the emotional behaviour of the personality and determine the level of its external activity. The Internet provides mechanisms for the behaviour of personalities with loneliness, narcissism, empathy, high excitability.
We conducted an empirical study of the relationship between individual personality traits and the severity of Internet addiction in fifty adults: 25 men and 25 women between the ages of 25 and 60. The subjects varied in their social status.
The subjects were divided into two groups. The first group included 25 people (13 men and 12 women),
| ВОПРОСЫ ПСИХОЛОГИИ
who were aged between 25 and 44 years (young age according to World Health Organization (WHO). The second group also included 25 people (12 men and 13 women) from 44 to 60 years of age (average age according to WHO).
This distribution is due to the need to cover the full adult age range, and it is assumed that by the upper limit of middle age, subjects are less likely to develop Internet addiction due to their preferences, given the large number of other interests which occupy a significant proportion of their lives and prevent them from spending much time on the Internet.
A prerequisite for inclusion in the sample was at least two years of computer and Internet use.
Results. We obtained the following results using Kimberly Young's method of determining Internet addiction, adapted by V.A. Burova [4, p. 102].
More than half of the subjects between the ages of 25 and 44 have partial or full addiction, which already justifies the relevance of the topic under consideration. Thus, every fifth person of this age has a form of addiction which may negatively affect the quality of life of the subject and his/her loved ones.
The severity level of Internet addiction among 45- to 60-year-olds is significantly lower than in the first group. The assumption that by the upper limit of middle age the subjects are less likely to develop Internet addiction because of their preferences, due to a large number of other interests, was confirmed.
The results of the two age groups according to the personality accentuation technique (G. Schmischek and K. Leonhardt test. Personality Accentuation and Temperament Test) were evenly distributed, with a predominance of the pedantic type of accentuation. The younger subgroup selected the questions in the Schmishek-K. Leongard test quite evenly, while the older group tended to avoid household chores and problems more. Also, it should be noted
that there was no female or male predominance in Internet addiction.
Introverts and respondents with paranoid or schizoid accentuations are most susceptible to Internet addiction. This means that the analysis targets the prevalence of these accentuations in addicts: dysthymic type, hyperthymic type, pedantic type, exalted type.
Let us describe further why these types of accentuations are assumed. The paranoiac type sees perspectives that other people may not even think about. And he/she can create a wonderful new world - with his/her own hands, without looking back on anything and, unfortunately, on anyone. The Internet for this category provides boundless ground for action, and in conjunction with the introverted personality, ideas are not transferred to the tangible world, continuing to swirl around themselves.
With schizoid accentuation, however, the Internet does not require a direct connection to the world, which is completely satisfactory to an individual.
In the introverted personality, the addiction mechanism is similar to that of the schizoid accentuation, and a common addiction statistic has been detected.
This is confirmed as follows. More than half of the subjects have a partial or full dependence which alreadyjus-tifies the relevance of the subject.
Thus, one in five subjects of this age has a form of addiction that can negatively affect the quality of life of the subject and their loved ones. The assumption that by the upper boundary of middle age, subjects are less likely to develop Internet addiction due to their preferences having been formed, due to a large number of other interests has been confirmed.
In the first group, the types such as dysthymic type, hyperthymic
type, pedantic type, exalted type are
quite clear. Ten out of thirteen subjects with addiction had presumed accentuation types, and this result can be considered reliable. In the
second group, eight out of nine subjects fell into the presumed accentuation types.
One in six teenagers and almost one in five adults now suffers from Internet addiction. For example, addiction occurs in almost 20 % of young people 17-29 years of age [8, p. 25].
Addicts suffering from non-chemical types of addiction do not always come to the attention of specialists. Accordingly, there are no generalised statistics.
Internet addiction in adults is much broader. Adolescents are mainly addicted to games and adults tend to socialise, buy things online, participate in auctions, go to casinos, obtain information of various kinds and watch films. [8, p. 25].
The identified types of accentuations in adults with addictive substance use characterize them as impulsive, hot-tempered, lacking controllability and impairment of control over urges and impulses which may be combined with physiological urges. They experience mood swings and mild irritability. The Internet acts as a source in this case.
The Internet provides mechanisms for the behaviour of personalities with loneliness, narcissism, empathy, and high excitability.
Conclusions. Thus, as a result of our study of a group of 50 adults of different social status, it was found that more than half of the subjects aged 25 to 44 years have partial or complete Internet addiction. The level of severity of Internet addiction among people aged 45 to 60 years is significantly lower than in the first group. The assumption was confirmed that by the upper limit of middle age, the subjects are less likely to develop Internet addiction because of their preferences, because of the large number of other interests. Addiction can adversely affect the quality of life of the subject and his loved ones. The results of the two age groups according to the personality accentuation technique (G. Schmischek and K. Leonhardt test. Personality Accentuation and
ИЗУЧЕНИЕ ВЗАИМОСВЯЗИ МЕЖДУ ЧЕРТАМИ ЛИЧНОСТИ И ТЯЖЕСТЬЮ
ИНТЕРНЕТ - ЗАВИСИМОСТИ У ВЗРОСЛЫХ
Temperament Test) were evenly distributed, with a predominance of the pedantic type of accentuation. The younger subgroup selected the questions in the Schmishek-Leongard test quite evenly, while the older group
tended to avoid household chores and problems more. Also, it should be noted that there was no female or male predominance in Internet addiction. Introverts and respondents with paranoid or schizoid ac-
centuations are most susceptible to Internet addiction. This means that the analysis targets the prevalence of these accentuations in addicts: dysthymic type, hyperthymic type, pedantic type, exalted type.
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