%0 Journal Article
%T An Analysis on the Correlation and Gender Difference between College Students¡¯ Internet Addiction and Mobile Phone Addiction in Taiwan
%A Shao-I Chiu
%A Fu-Yuan Hong
%A Su-Lin Chiu
%J ISRN Addiction
%D 2013
%R 10.1155/2013/360607
%X This study is aimed at constructing a correlative model between Internet addiction and mobile phone addiction; the aim is to analyse the correlation (if any) between the two traits and to discuss the influence confirming that the gender has difference on this fascinating topic; taking gender into account opens a new world of scientific study to us. The study collected 448 college students on an island as study subjects, with 61.2% males and 38.8% females. Moreover, this study issued Mobile Phone Addiction Scale and Internet Addiction Scale to conduct surveys on the participants and adopts the structural equation model (SEM) to process the collected data. According to the study result, (1) mobile phone addiction and Internet addiction are positively related; (2) female college students score higher than male ones in the aspect of mobile addiction. Lastly, this study proposes relevant suggestions to serve as a reference for schools, college students, and future studies based on the study results. 1. Introduction The current modes of information and communication technology such as computers, the Internet, and mobile phones have changed adolescents¡¯ daily life drastically. In addition to being a convenience to people¡¯s communication methods, technology unfortunately has negative side-effects. The most frequent negative side-effect is chronic addiction to technological mediums or excessive human-machine interactions involved. People rely on technological devices to a level of full-blown addiction to obtain pleasure as a psychological benefit. They depend on technology significantly in the hope that it would lessen negative moods or increase positive outcomes [1¨C4]. According to Griffiths [5], technological addiction is a subcategory of behavioural addiction. He defines it as a behavioural addiction which involves human-machine interaction and is nonchemical in nature. However, if speaking from the perspective of substance-based addictions, technological addiction does not produce recognizable signs or features (e.g., the biological indicators of nicotine addiction), and the addicts may develop unacceptable social behaviour and attitude in their daily routines or social life [5, 6]. In this case, there is no denying that technological addiction has caused a negative impact on an individual¡¯s life in a harmful manner. For the time being, studies on Internet addiction and mobile phone addiction are common occurrences. The Internet services and games provided by mobile phones may be considered a way to alleviate loneliness [7]. Besides, a great deal of
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/isrn.addiction/2013/360607/