Internet Activity and Internet Addiction: Where is the Borderline in Developing One’s Information Competency?

Abstract

The relevance of the research is associated with the fact that information technologies, social services of the Internet and the very cyberspace are changing rapidly adding into the human life new facets of existence and interaction, new opportunities to act, manifestations of mental processes and personality features, one of them being information competency. These changes affect the way the understanding of such phenomena as Internet activity and Internet addiction throughout the development of one's information competency is shaped. With regard to this, the paper is aimed at finding out the signs of Internet activity and its transition into Internet addiction in the development of an individual's information competency. The leading methods for researching this problem are extrapolation and modeling that allow considering the approaches to understanding the "Internet activity" and "Internet addiction" phenomena in pedagogical and psychological literature in their entirety and in comparison, analyzing the Internet risks, and describing the mechanisms of transformation of Internet activity into Internet addiction during the development of an individual's information competency. In the paper, the following phenomena are defined: the "Internet activity" as a part of daily culture of a person belonging to digital society and the "Internet addiction" as acquired behavior based on the intensity of the wish to stay in the Internet continuously and affecting the development of an individual's information competency in the context of changing its role both in the real and virtual life. In the paper, it is emphasized that a certain development level of an individual's information competency is manifested in the individual's Internet activity while excessive Internet activity practiced by the individual triggers the mechanisms of its transformation into Internet addiction. The materials of the paper are of practical importance for master's degree students, postgraduate students, teachers of higher education institutions and teachers of educational institutions conducting research in this area that set objectives associated with looking for pedagogical means for individuals to practice their Internet activity without running into Internet addiction.

Maps for developing information competency of sportsman students in conditions of digital transformation

“…The achievement of meta-subject educational results in the context of the activity-based constituent of the information competency The authors' approach to self-fulfilment both in the real and virtual world The development level of motivation, reflexivity, and network thinking, manifestation of the Internet activity as described in the earlier studies (Tabachuk et al, 2018) It is through maps that students get introduced to the cultural constituent of the information competency in the period of digital transformation.…”

Emotional characteristics of sportsman students engaged in bullying and cyberbullying in relation to migrant students

“…The problem of cyberbullying is a serious problem for youth as the number of Internet users is growing every year (Yilmaz, 2010;Mejia et al, 2019;Mikhaylovsky et al, 2019;Tabachuk et al, 2018). A significant part of young people use smartphones (de Arriba Pérez et al, 2016;Park & Kim, 2018;Marques & Pitarma, 2016;Jeong, 2017).…”

Uso problemático de Internet y variables psicológicas o físicas en estudiantes universitarios

“…Por otra parte, algunos estudios indican que pasar tiempo excesivo en Internet es un predictor del UPI (Tabachuk et al, 2018), y la población en riesgo la integran adolescentes y estudiantes universitarios (García-Oliva et al, 2017), por lo que la adicción a Internet es un problema que afecta principalmente a los más jóvenes y se asocia a las de tipo comportamental. Así pues, provoca en el usuario estímulos internos y pérdida de control de sus acciones, en este caso relacionadas con el tiempo que pasa en la red.…”