Abstract
As Internet users grow in number, behavioral disorders related to Internet use have become increasingly prevalent. The term “Pathological Internet Use (PIU)” has been used to describe problematic, excessive, or maladaptive use of the Internet. Despite mounting interest in how to measure PIU, these assessment instruments focus mostly on adults, especially college students. There have few proper instruments for adolescents in China.
It has been argued that the current assessment instruments of PIU are based on different theoretical underpinnings and do not agree on the underlying dimensions of PIU. Thus, we developed the Adolescent Pathological Internet Use Scale (APIUS) based on the behavioral, emotional and maladaptive cognition symptoms proposed by Davis and the realistic situation in China. The APIUS, background questionnaire eliciting data on basic demographics, weekly on-line hours were administered in a paper and pencil manner to a random sample of ordinary middle school students (N = 1331) and adolescent who have been diagnosed to be pathological internet users (N = 30). Exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Cronbach α, Test-retest reliability, content validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity and t-test were used to analyze the data.
The results indicated that APIUS is consisted of six dimensions, including salience, mood alteration, social comfort, tolerance, compulsive internet use/withdrawal symptoms, and negative outcomes. APIUS had a clear structure, good reliability and validity with satisfactory Cronbach α, Test-retest reliability, content validity, convergent validity, discriminant validity. T-test also showed pathological internet users had significant higher scores than ordinary middle school students. Based on the Sensitivity, Specificity and Diagnostic Accuracy, this paper suggests the cutoff point of APIUS. The limitations of APIUS have also been discussed.
| Keywords: | adolescent; pathological internet use; Adolescent Pathological Internet Use Scale |
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