Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate characteristics of young adolescents who are addicted to Internet gaming. Participants were 836 high school students and they were administered the modified Young's Internet addiction inventory and other questionnaires assessing their Internet usage. We selected two groups of students -an addicted (n=100) and a non-addicted (n=89) group and compared their characteristics using the Eysenck impulsivity scale, social problem solving inventory (SPSI), social problem solving ability inventory, and the communication scale based on Satir theory. Results indicated that internet-addicted adolescents were more impulsive and showed low problem-solving abilities. In case of communication, they also showed poor abilities in seeing different points of view and understanding other's feelings. To determine the relative contributions of these variables to explaining the Internet game addiction, stepwise multiple regression was conducted. It was demonstrated that impulsivity, cognitive attitudes of problem solving, and interpersonal negotiation strategy explained 24.7% of variance of Internet game addiction. In conclusion, these results suggest that the excessive Internet-gaming is associated with poor social skills in adolescents.