7/29/2019 14974544

1/5

Internet Addiction Disorder and Chattingin the Czech Republic

BARBORA SIMKOVA and JAN CINCERA, Ph.D.

ABSTRACT

This study analyzes connections between online chatting and the Internet Addiction Disor-der (IAD). In the research are compared two groups of respondentsCzech online chat usersand Czech university students. The set of answers designed by Kimberly Young, of the Uni-versity of Pittsburgh, was the common base for research. The research showed that IAD isknown among university students, that some of them spend an enormous time on the Inter-net, and that many of them feel it is a problem. The research also clearly showed that the mostserious chat users more often have problems with IAD than other university students.

CYBERPSYCHOLOGY & BEHAVIORVolume 7, Number 5, 2004 Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.

INTRODUCTION

WE LIVE IN THE TIME of the Internet. We ask ourstudents to use it, and we suppose they do.However, there are also serious discrepancies be-tween our intention and the way students behaveon the Internet. All teachers know that wheneverthey teach in the PC room, students are chattingduring the lesson. Is this more serious than com-mon disobedience? Dr. Kimberly Young, from theUniversity of Pittsburgh at Bradford, discovered therelation between the pattern of what Internet ser-vices people prefer and the frequency of InternetAddiction Disorder (IAD).1 According to her re-search, Internet users suffering from IAD spendmuch more time on chatting services or other two-way communication applications than on the Webor another Internet services. On the contrary, non-addicted users spend less time chatting and moretime surfing the Web to gather information (Table1). Is there any correlation between IAD and chat?

It was the main hypothesis of this research, whichhas been done as part of the Degree Thesis of BarboraSimkova, student of the Institute of Information Ser-vices and Librarianship at the Faculty of Arts,Charles University in Prague (the consultant was JanCincera, Ph.D., Technical University of Liberec).

Besides the research of Dr. Young, we shouldmention the studies of Steve Thompson,2 Keith An-derson,3 and Victor Brenner4 concerning IAD. Thenumber of respondents who were classified as de-

pendents in all of these papers are alarming,which raises questions about their methodologyand about the definition of dependency. If we focuson the research of Dr. Young, we can suppose thatthe main reason for the high levels of dependent re-spondents (up to 80%) was the choice of the setrespondents were people who expressed interest inthe problem of IAD. We could suppose that the realsituation is better.

The definition of IAD is still somewhat ambigu-ous. In the beginning of this phenomenon, it wascommon to define dependent people as users whospent very long periods of time on the Internet, forexample, more than 20 hours per week. However,this usage is very common for many Internet spe-cialists, who do not have serious problems with In-ternet usage interfering with their real, personallives. The research mentioned above used a combi-nation of questions reflecting the way the Internetinfluences users thoughts and behavior. We de-cided to use the set of questions designed by Dr.Young, translated in Czech. One of the reasons wasto compare our output with hers. Another was our

Faculty of Education Technical University in Liberec Liberec Czech Republic

7/29/2019 14974544

2/5

feeling that her criteria are strong enough to pro-vide a sufficient tool for recognizing users whohave serious troubles using the Internet.

However, differences might have appeared inconnotations between the Czech translation andthe original version. We should mention a connota-

tion shift in the translation of the first questionDo you feel preoccupied with the Internet (thinkabout previous on-line activity or anticipate nexton-line session?). We translated it in stronger way:Do you feel keen for the Internet (think about pre-vious on-line activity or anticipate next on-line ses-sion?). This shift might have decreased the numberof yes answers to this question in comparisonwith the research of Dr. Young.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Our research was conducted in MayOctober2003. To obtain data for necessary comparison, wedecided to collect the data in two separate sets. Thefirst group consisted of the chat users who werelisted in the first 10 or 100 positions among themost popular Czech web chats TOP lists users (Gi-gaChat, XChat, Lide.cz, Xko). They were contactedvia the online web form in May 2003. We have askedthe first 500 users of Xchat and Lide.cz and 100

users of Gigachat and Xko to fill out the questionform. It is necessary to notice that the criteria forbeing mentioned in TopTens are different in vari-ous chat services. For example, you must spend2400 hours to fit into first 100 users of Xko, but only700 hours for Lide.cz. From this group, we received357 valid answers.

The respondents should have answered the set ofquite personal questions, designed by Dr. Young5

for her research:

1. Do you feel preoccupied with the Internet (thinkabout previous on-line activity or anticipate nexton-line session)?

2. Do you feel the need to use the Internet with in-creasing amounts of time in order to achieve sat-isfaction?

3. Have you repeatedly made unsuccessful effortsto control, cut back, or stop Internet use?

4. Do you feel restless, moody, depressed, or irrita-ble when attempting to cut down or stop Inter-

net use?5. Do you stay on-line longer than originally in-

tended?6. Have you jeopardized or risked the loss of sig-

nificant relationship, job, educational or careeropportunity because of the Internet?

7. Have you lied to family members, therapist, orothers to conceal the extent of involvement withthe Internet?

8. Do you use the Internet as a way of escapingfrom problems or of relieving a dysphoric mood

(e.g., feelings of helplessness, guilt, anxiety, de-pression)?

We also used the same criteria as Dr. Young formarking respondent as dependent: five or moreyes answers. In the group were 56 dependent re-spondents and 301 non-dependents (Fig. 1).

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

It is interesting to notice the gender of respon-dents: in the group of chat users were 245 men and

INTERNET ADDICTION DISORDER AND CHATTING IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 537

TABLE 1. INTERNET APPLICATIONS MOST UTILIZED BYDEPENDENTS AND NON-DEPENDENTS

Application Dependents Non-Dependents

Chat 35% 7%MUDs 28% 5%News groups 15% 10%

E-mail 13% 30%WWW 7% 25%Information protocols 2% 24%

Dependent

16%

Non-Dependent

84%

Dependent Non-Dependent

FIG. 1. Results of questionnaire from chat users.

7/29/2019 14974544

3/5

112 women. It seems that men are able to spendmore time chatting than women. However, if weassess men and women separately, we can see thatwomen who belong to the groups of the most seri-ous chat users are more often dependent than menusers. On the other hand, the age of respondentsseems to have no impact on the frequency of de-pendency (Fig. 2).

We also notice that among the respondents inthis group were 27 respondents younger than 15years (7.5 %) and 43 in the age range 1518 (12%).

Members of the second group were Czech uni-versity students who were asked to fill out the sameforms in SeptemberOctober 2003. We obtained 341valid answers. Twenty of them we assessed as de-pendent and 324 as non-dependent (Fig. 3).

Comparing the gender of the respondents, weobtained different results. From the 142 womenstudents were 1% dependent and from 199 male-students 9%. In the group of university students,men more often have a problem with IAD thanwomen.

Unsurprisingly, we also discovered the signifi-cant difference between the time that dependentand non-dependent students spend on the Internet:44 hours per week for dependent and 13 hours perweek for non-dependent students.

The largest part of dependent users positively an-swered to the questions: Do you stay on-line

longer than originally intended? and Do you feelpreoccupied with the Internet (think about previouson-line activity or anticipate next on-line session)?We add the graph of frequency of positive answersfor the dependent group of students (Fig. 4).

538 SIMKOVA AND CINCERA

15%16% 16%

15%

18%

10%

0%

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

up to 15 16-18 19-25 26-30 31-45 46 andmore

FIG. 2. Age of responders.

Dependent

6%

Non-Dependent

94%

Dependent Non-Dependent

FIG. 3. Results of questionnaires from Czech Univer-sity students.

7/29/2019 14974544

4/5

If we compare the results of both sets, we candraw the following conclusions:

The problem of IAD is a real thing. There are In-ternet users whose lives are seriously influencedby the Internet in a negative way.

The most serious chat users more often haveproblems with IAD than common university stu-dents. The hypothesis about the link betweenchat and IAD is clearly proven. However, we donot know the reason for this link. Are chattingservices addictive, or do dependent people pre-fer chat for whatever reason?

The significant part of serious chat users areyouth or kids. They spend a large portion of theirfree time chatting with their Internet friends. Itmust seriously influence their attitude towards

the real world, as well as their school results. IAD is known among university students. Some

of them spend an enormous time on the Internet,and many of them feel it as a problem they arenot able to solve.

We live in the time of the Internet, which bringswith it new opportunities and new troubles. IAD isone of them. In our enthusiasm towards the Inter-net, we must not ignore it. Our research contributedto the proper assessment of the problem, but fur-

ther work should be done. We need to discover allthe reasons that lead people to be addicted to com-

puter-mediated communication, and we need tolook for ways to teach students how to use the In-ternet in a healthy way.

REFERENCES1. Young, K.S. (1998). Internet addiction: the emergence

of a new clinical disorder. CyberPsychology and Behav-ior 3:237244.

2. Thompson, S. (2003). Internet connectivity: addic-tion and dependency study [On-line]. Available:http://w8r.com/iads/.

3. Anderson, K.J. (2003). Internet use among collegestudents: an exploratory study [On-line]. Available:www.rpi.edu/~anderk4/research.html.

4. Brenner, V. (1997). Internet use, abuse, addiction: thefirst 90 days of the Internet Usage Survey. Psychologi-

cal Reports 3:879882.5. Young, K.S. (1998). Internet addiction: the emergence

of a new clinical disorder. CyberPsychology & Behavior3:237244.

Address reprint requests to:Jan Cincera

Technical University in LiberecFaculty of Education

Halkova 6461 17 Liberec 1, Czech Republic

E-mail:Jan.cincera@vslib.cz

INTERNET ADDICTION DISORDER AND CHATTING IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC 539

98%95%

91%87%

62%59%

48%

36%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

question

n. 5

question

n. 1

question

n. 2

question

n. 8

question

n. 3

question

n. 4

question

n. 6

question

n. 7

FIG. 4. Frequency of positive responses for dependent students.

7/29/2019 14974544

5/5