The Analysis of the Internet Use Behavior Among Adolescents

서울시 일부 청소년의 인터넷 중독수준 실태

The purpose of this study was to analyze the internet usage patterns among adolescents and to provide basic data for the development of internet addiction prevention program. The subjects of this study were 1169 students in middle and high school students in Seoul, Korea. Self-administered questionnaires were employed and data were analysed by SPSS 12.0. Major conclusions were as follows: 1. Most of the students were found to be the normal internet users. On the other hand, potential risk group was 8.2% and high risk group was 4.7%. Every students have had an experience of inter use. The 90.6% of the students' households had internet links. The percentage of students who were using internet more than 3 hours a day was 25.7%, and The most popular type of website was entertainment. 2. Male students showed greater percentages of potential risk and high risk group than female students. The students having parents in divorce, remarriage and separation were more likely to be in potential risk group than those having normal parents. The staying alone in home after school and small sleeping time were positively related to high level of internet addiction. 3. The characteristics of the students in potential risk and high risk group were longer duration of the internet use, internet use through the whole week, frequent internet use late at night, frequent use of pornographic site, main purpose of internet use for entertainment and shortage of rest during internet use. This study results had an limitation of generalizing to entire Korean adolescents because the sample of this study was middle and high school students living in Seoul. Future study was needed for the analysis of internet use behavior of the entire Korean adolescents, and for the identification of the accurate predictors for adolescents' internet addiction.