Adolescent Internet Addiction:Longitudinal Associations With Adjustment Outcomes And Interpersonal Factors

With the rapid development of Internet technology,Internet addiction among adolescents has become a serious public health concern worldwide.In order to effectively prevent and intervene Internet addiction among adolescents,it is imperative to examine its association with other adjustment outcomes(research issue 1)and risk factors(research issue 2)that may impact Internet addiction.For research issue 1(i.e.,the relationship between Internet addiction and adjustment outcomes),researchers have proposed three possible models:Internet addiction antecedent model(i.e.,Internet addiction leads to maladjustment),Internet addiction consequence model(i.e.,maladjustment leads to Internet addiction),and transactional model(i.e.,reciprocal influence between Internet addiction and maladjustment).However,there were few longitudinal studies that investigated the relationship between Internet addiction and multiple adjustment outcomes.To fill these gaps,this study conducted a three-year longitudinal study,and used autoregressive cross-lagged models to investigate the relationships between Internet addiction and adjustment outcomes.With regard to research issue 2,interpersonal theory proposes that poor relationships with significant others are salient risk factors for Internet addiction.However,previous studies only examined the role of one kind of interpersonal relationship in adolescent Internet addiction.Few studies have examined the joint impact of multiple kinds of interpersonal relationships on Internet addiction.Moreover,few studies have examined the long-term impacts of these risk factors,or considered the individual differences in the initial level and longitudinal change of Internet addiction.To fill these gaps,this study used growth mixture modeling to reveal heterogeneous trajectories of adolescent Internet addiction,and used multinomial logistic regression analysis to examine whether three significant interpersonal relationships(i.e.,parent-adolescent relationship,teacher-student relationship,and student-student relationship)could predict profile membership of Internet addiction.This study randomly recruited a sample of 1,365 adolescents from four middle schools(two junior high schools and two senior high schools)in Wuhan.We conducted a three-year longitudinal study.Three repeated measurements were obtained in the spring semester of each year.The mean age of the participants was 14.68 years(SD = 1.56)and 53.2%of them were males.In each measurement occasion,participants filled out a series of questionnaire to assess demographics,Internet addiction,depression,delinquency,subjective well-being,as well as relationships with parents,teachers and other students.Results of autoregressive cross-lagged analyses revealed heterogeneity in the relationship between Internet addiction and adjustment outcomes.For the relationship between depression and Internet addiction,consequence model had the best fit.For the relationship between delinquency and Internet addiction,none of the above three models were supported,only autoregressive model had the best fit.For the relationship between subjective well-being and Internet addiction,transactional model had the best fit.Finally,results of growth mixture modeling suggested three trajectories existed:"high-decreasing" trajectory group,"moderate-stable" trajectory group,and"low-increasing" trajectory group.Multinomial logistic regression analysis indicated that,compared with the "low-increasing" trajectory group,adolescents in the"high-decreasing" and "moderate-stable" traj ectory groups reported more poor relationships with parents,teachers,and other students.The findings of the present study deepen our understanding of risk factors and adverse consequences of Internet addiction among adolescents.These findings have important theoretical and practical significance,deepening our understanding of the risk factors and adverse consequences of adolescent Internet addiction,and has important implications for the prevention and intervention of adolescent Internet addiction.These findings suggest that practitioners can focus on adolescent depression,subjective well-being and important interpersonal factors.