RESEARCH SPOTLIGHT- Internet Addiction: When Positive Emotions Are Not So Positive

INTERNET ADDICTION: WHEN POSITIVE EMOTIONS ARE NOT SO POSITIVE

Longstreet, Phil, Stoney Brooks, and Ester S. Gonzalez. “Internet addiction: When the positive emotions are not so positive.” Technology in Society 57 (2019): 76-85.

Internet usage has become a prevalent part of daily life. In fact, the Pew Research Center reports that the majority of Americans access the Internet at least once a day and more than 30% reported being online almost constantly. This usage pattern has been exacerbated by the recent pandemic in which many people used the Internet from their homes (while isolating) for both work and personal purposes. In fact, for many, the Internet was one of their only outlets during the pandemic.

Noting that there was a lack of research on the negative outcomes associated with such frequent Internet and social media usage, Phil Longstreet, Ph.D., associate professor of management information systems, and his team of researchers decided to investigate.

“Our article examines the potential emotional and lifestyle influences that social networking and Internet usage has on the welfare of its users,” said Longstreet. “In particular, we wanted to learn how individuals use the Internet as a coping mechanism to escape daily frustrations of life and, in effect, replace those negative emotions with more positive ones.

“Unfortunately, this ‘solution’ only feeds the problem. It leads some users to become Internet addicted, where they have trouble functioning in their daily lives because they are spending so much time online.”

To promote a better understanding of the positives and negatives of Internet use, the researchers applied the coping theory to explain how internet addiction influences both positive and negative emotions.

“Our study demonstrates that frequent internet use tends to cause users to experience the opposite of their desired effect—less positive emotions and greater negative emotions,” said Longstreet. “Furthermore, our research study empirically examines Internet addiction with various emotional states, including depression, loneliness, happiness, and life satisfaction. The proposed model was tested and validated with SEM techniques to data collected from 251 participants. Overall, our findings provide a deeper understanding that explains the direct impacts from Internet addiction on various emotional states.”

Based on his research, Longstreet recommends that businesses and universities integrating more of their operations into a digital format should continue to teach proper management of Internet usage and guide their employees in proper Internet usage—potentially even provide human resources services to support Internet addicted employees and seek to establish a more balanced approach to virtual and physical life.

Phil Longstreet, Ph.D., associate professor of management information systems