Internet addiction social intimacy and happiness in college students

Subject Areas : روان درمانگری

Samaneh Rastgar ¹ , Mohammad Hossein Abdollahi ² , Mahnaz Shahgholian ³

1 - BA in Psychology
2 - PhD Kharazmi University
3 - PhD Kharazmi University

Received: 2015-05-19 Accepted : 2015-05-19 Published : 2014-12-22

Keywords: happiness, internet addiction, Social Intimacy, college students,

Abstract :

The aim of this study was to investigate the relations between internet addiction and social intimacy and happiness in college students. Two hundred college students were selected by cluster sampling method from Kharazmi University in academic year of2012.The participants completed the Internet Addiction Test (Young, 1998), the Oxford Happiness Questionnaire (Argyle et al., 1989) and the Miller Social Intimacy Scale (Miller & Lefcourt, 1982).The results indicated that there were no significant difference in happiness and social intimacy between normal users and users with mild addiction to the Internet. The happiness and social intimacy of normal users and users with mild addiction to the Internet were higher than the severe addiction users. The regression analysis indicated that internet addiction predicted 7% and 10% of the variance in happiness in healthy group of internet users and mild addiction ones, respectively. The findings suggest that although using internet with the aim of satisfying one's psychological and emotional needs can induce internet addiction, informing internet users of using internet appropriately may be helpful in preventive intervention.