Mias

Abstract

The Internet experience has drastically changed as social networking sites have proliferated and become a major part of Internet usage. This change in the Internet landscape and Internet usage poses an interesting challenge for scales addressing Internet behavior. In this work, we describe further development of an Internet anxiety scale for assessment of Internet behavior, presenting underlying concepts, and analysis and evaluation of human anxiety on the Internet. A study was conducted with initially twenty-five participants, and later a survey with (n=385) university participants was carried out to determine MIAS factors. Based on analysis of the results of the surveys and using a modified Internet anxiety scale (MIAS), user data can be leveraged to measure Internet anxiety. The results of the study illustrate an ongoing progression in addressing issues faced by anxious users and indicate future directions of measuring Internet anxiety.