(Press-News.org) Among the most popular questions addressed in online communication research is the extent to which Internet use leads to undesirable psychosocial outcomes such as depression and loneliness. Evidence suggests that certain motivations to communicate online can have negative consequences, as the Internet itself can, for some, serve as an object of compulsive use. Individuals' compulsive Internet use (CIU) refers to their inability to control, reduce, or stop their online behavior, while excessive Internet use (EIU) is the degree to which an individual feels that he or she spends an excessive amount of time online or even loses track of time when using the Internet. For those who are unable to limit their use, time spent online may produce negative outcomes such as depression, loneliness, and limited face-to-face contacts.
Joseph Mazer, assistant professor at Clemson University and Andrew M. Ledbetter, assistant professor at Texas Christian University published an article today in Southern Communication Journal that explores how specific online communication attitudes—such as individuals' tendency for online self-disclosure, online social connection, and online anxiety—predicted their compulsive and excessive Internet use and, in turn, poor well-being.
Mazer and Ledbetter found that an individual's tendency for online self disclosure and online social connection led them to use the Internet in more compulsive ways. If a person has poor face-to-face communication skills that individual will likely be more attracted to the social features of online communication, which can foster CIU.
Prior research suggests that socially anxious individuals perceive online communication environments as less threatening and, as a result, are more likely to seek out communication in those settings. The findings from Mazer and Ledbetter's study are not entirely consistent with this claim, which may suggest that researchers adjust their theoretical image of the compulsive user: Whereas previous research frames online communication as a safe activity for the socially anxious to escape their communication anxiety, Mazer and Ledbetter found that compulsive users also experience anxiety when communicating online.
To the extent that socially anxious individuals are drawn to the Internet, such anxiety seems to stimulate compulsive, but not necessarily excessive, use. Rather, excessive users seem to have a more realistic perception of online communication as convenient but sometimes limited in communicative effectiveness by a lack of social cues often available in face-to-face interactions. In other words, according to Mazer and Ledbetter's study, individuals' anxiety motivates CIU, while efficiency seems to motivate EIU.
Mazer and Ledbetter found that CIU, not EIU, led individuals' to experience poor well-being outcomes. Given their widespread proliferation and adoption, especially among younger users, social networking sites now represent an important medium for maintaining social connections. Their existence raises important questions regarding individual traits that might influence online communication frequency and how excessive participation in these sites might foster compulsive and excessive Internet use.
### END
Online attitudes predict individuals' compulsive and excessive Internet use and poor well-being
2012-10-09
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
Preterm labor powerhouse therapy offers promise for inflammatory diseases
2012-10-09
Magnesium sulfate is given to many pregnant women to treat preterm labor and preeclampsia and was recently shown to prevent cerebral palsy; however little is known about how it works. Researchers at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine recently discovered the mechanism by which magnesium reduces the production of cytokines. Cytokines are molecules responsible for regulating inflammation; they play a key role conditions, such as diabetes, obesity, atherosclerosis, asthma, and alcoholic liver disease and cirrhosis. Although the study related to pregnancy, inflammation ...
Rearing technique may bolster biocontrol wasp's commercial prospects
2012-10-09
This press release is available in Spanish. Two to three millimeters long, the parasitoid wasp Habrobracon hebetor is a top candidate for use in programs to biologically control Indianmeal moths and other stored-product pests. But despite the prospects for reduced insecticide use and product losses, the approach has yet to gain traction commercially, in part because of the lack of an efficient method of stockpiling the wasp.
But a team of scientists, including researchers from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), is working on the problem.
Through studies of an ...
Animal models developed by researchers at IDIBELL and ICO can revolutionize the study of cancer
2012-10-09
Some animal models developed by researchers at the Institute of Biomedical Research of Bellvitge (IDIBELL) and the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO) has served to validate the effectiveness of a new drug against ovarian cancer resistant to cisplatin. The multidisciplinary work, done in collaboration with the biopharmaceutical company Pharmamar, was published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
The human tumor tissue is implanted in the same nude mouse organ from which it came. This type of implant, called orthotopic, can reproduce the histological, genetic and ...
MIT team builds most complex synthetic biology circuit yet
2012-10-09
CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Using genes as interchangeable parts, synthetic biologists design cellular circuits that can perform new functions, such as sensing environmental conditions. However, the complexity that can be achieved in such circuits has been limited by a critical bottleneck: the difficulty in assembling genetic components that don't interfere with each other.
Unlike electronic circuits on a silicon chip, biological circuits inside a cell cannot be physically isolated from one another. "The cell is sort of a burrito. It has everything mixed together," says Christopher ...
Significant wheat production potential in 8 African nations-climate, soil and economic data analysis
2012-10-09
Julie-Anne Savarit-Cosenza
301-280-5720
julieanne@burnesscommunications.com
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
Ellen Wilson
301-280-5723
ewilson@burnesscommunications.com
International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center
Significant wheat production potential in 8 African nations-climate, soil and economic data analysis
Researchers call for more research but comprehensive 12-country analysis suggests hungry region produces only 10% of possible wheat yield; could become more self-sufficient in wheat production as hedge against rising expensive ...
Can eating tomatoes lower the risk of stroke?
2012-10-09
MINNEAPOLIS – Eating tomatoes and tomato-based foods is associated with a lower risk of stroke, according to new research published in the October 9, 2012, print issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Tomatoes are high in the antioxidant lycopene.
The study found that people with the highest amounts of lycopene in their blood were 55 percent less likely to have a stroke than people with the lowest amounts of lycopene in their blood.
The study involved 1,031 men in Finland between the ages of 46 and 65. The level of lycopene ...
A new field of developmental neuroscience changes our understanding of the early years of human life
2012-10-09
Toronto – October 3, 2012. By the time our children reach kindergarten their learning and developmental patterns are already taking shape, as is a trajectory for their future health. Now, for the first time, scientists have amassed a large collection of research that looks "under the skin", to examine how and why experiences interact with biology starting before birth to affect a life course.
Biological Embedding of Early Social Adversity: From Fruit Flies to Kindergartners, a special volume published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and authored ...
Maternal depression affects language development in babies
2012-10-09
Maternal depression and a common class of antidepressants can alter a crucial period of language development in babies, according to a new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia, Harvard University and the Child & Family Research Institute (CFRI) at BC Children's Hospital.
Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study finds that treatment of maternal depression with serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) can accelerate babies' ability to attune to the sounds and sights of their native language, while maternal depression ...
Gladstone scientists discover gene 'bursting' plays key role in protein production
2012-10-09
SAN FRANCISCO, CA—October 8, 2012—Scientists at the Gladstone Institutes have mapped the precise frequency by which genes get turned on across the human genome, providing new insight into the most fundamental of cellular processes—and revealing new clues as to what happens when this process goes awry.
In a study being published this week online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Gladstone Investigator Leor Weinberger, PhD, and his research team describe how a gene's on-and-off switching—called "bursting"—is the predominant method by which genes make ...
McGill researchers link genetic mutation to psychiatric disease and obesity
2012-10-09
McGill researchers have identified a small region in the genome that conclusively plays a role in the development of psychiatric disease and obesity. The key lies in the genomic deletion of brain-derived neurotrophic factor, or BDNF, a nervous system growth factor that plays a critical role in brain development.
To determine the role of BDNF in humans, Prof. Carl Ernst, from McGill's Department of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, screened over 35,000 people referred for genetic screening at clinics and over 30,000 control subjects in Canada, the U.S., and Europe. Overall, ...