Anxiety-Related Coping Styles, Social Support, and Internet Use Disorder

Abstract

Objective: The Internet can offer a seemingly safe haven for those being disappointed by relationships in the “offline world”. Although the Internet can provide lonely people with opportunities to seek for help and support online, complete withdrawal from the offline world comes with costs. It is discussed if people can even become “addicted” to the Internet. Of note, meanwhile, many researchers prefer the term Internet use disorder (IUD) instead of using the term “Internet addiction”. To illustrate the importance of one’s own social network supporting a person in everyday life, we investigated, for the first time to our knowledge, how social resources in terms of quality and quantity might represent a buffer against the development of IUD. Furthermore, anxiety related coping styles are investigated as a further independent variable likely impacting on the development of an IUD. Method: In the present work, N = 567 participants (n = 164 males and n = 403 females; Mage = 23.236; SDage = 8.334) filled in a personality questionnaire assessing individual differences in cognitive avoidant and vigilant anxiety processing, ergo, traits describing individual differences in everyday coping styles/modes. Moreover, all participants provided information on individual differences in tendencies toward IUD, the perceived quality of social support received, and the size of their social network (hence a quantity measure). Results: Participants with larger social networks and higher scores in the received social support reported the lowest tendencies toward IUD in our data. A vigilant coping style was positively correlated with tendencies toward IUD, whereas no robust associations could be observed between a cognitive avoidant coping style and tendencies toward IUD. Hierarchical linear regression underlined an important predictive role of the interaction term of vigilance in ego-threat scenarios and perceived quality of social support. Conclusion: The current study not only yields support for the hypothesis that the size of one’s own social network as well as the perceived quality of social support received in everyday life present putative resilience factors against developing IUD. It also supports the approach that special coping styles are needed to make use of the social support offered.

Anxiety sensitivity mediates relations between anxiety (but not depression) and problematic smartphone use severity, adjusting for age and sex, in Chinese adolescents early in the COVID ‐19 pandemic

“…This finding is consistent with previous research on relations between AS and PSU (Elhai, Levine, O'Brien, & Armour, 2018 ), relations between AS with PIU (Seyed Hashemi et al, 2020 ), and is consistent with theory on AS (see Taylor, 2014 for a review). It fits also with earlier findings by Jung et al ( 2019 ) showing that a vigilant coping style is related to PIU, although that paper did not investigate depression/anxiety. Specifically, smartphones may offer a convenient, socially acceptable source of avoidance and distraction from anxiety symptoms during times of stress and distress.…”

“…In the context of the present work, different coping styles investigated within repressor/sensitizer theory are relevant. Vigilance coping (hence those persons more sensitive toward danger and likely more anxiety sensitive) was also associated with PIU (Jung et al, 2019 ). Because being focused upon AS leads to fear/avoidance of physical sensations, AS may influence the relationship between anxiety with PSU by driving smartphone engagement during times of stress and distress.…”

Impulsivity, Social Support and Depression Are Associated With Latent Profiles of Internet Addiction Among Male College Freshmen

“…With each additional point of social support, the probability of male freshmen being assigned to the moderate-risk group and the high-risk group decreased by 3.5 and 7.6%, respectively. The results are in conformity with the extant literature that studied the relationship between social support and internet addiction ( 76 – 78 ). Study showed that participants with higher scores in receiving social support reported the lowest tendencies toward internet use disorder ( 76 ).…”

“…The results are in conformity with the extant literature that studied the relationship between social support and internet addiction ( 76 – 78 ). Study showed that participants with higher scores in receiving social support reported the lowest tendencies toward internet use disorder ( 76 ). Obviously, social support is a potential factor for internet addiction ( 77 , 78 ).…”

Financial Awards and Their Effect on Football Players’ Anxiety and Coping Skills

“…This result specifies the understanding of the financial award's effect on their cognitive trait anxiety and selected coping skills. The results of our research extend the knowledge of previous researches showing that anxiety is closely related to skills to manage stress (Rahnama et al, 2017;Jung et al, 2019;Kaplánová, 2019a,c;Morales-Rodríguez and Pérez-Mármol, 2019).…”