Is Internet overuse associated with impaired empathic ability in Korean college students?

Growing propensity of internet addiction among Asian college students: meta-analysis of pooled prevalence from 39 studies with over 50,000 participants

OBJECTIVES

Rapid internet penetration and technological advancements have facilitated accessibility to internet-enabled devices globally. Since Asia lacks comprehensive data on internet addiction among college students, this review aims to estimate its pooled prevalence.

STUDY DESIGN

This was a systematic review and meta-analysis.

METHODS

Searches were conducted in PubMed, Scopus, CINAHL, and MEDLINE from their inception through August 2022 using terms appropriate to internet addiction and Asian countries/territorial for publications in English peer-reviewed journals. The studies included those done on current college students and provided unambiguous indicators of the threshold of internet addiction. The pooled prevalence was calculated through a random-effects meta-analysis by RStudio software, and I2 statistic was used to assess heterogeneity. The Joanna Briggs Institute critical appraisal checklist was used for quality assessment.

RESULTS

Overall, between 2007 and 2021, 39 papers comprising 45 effect sizes and totaling 58,058 participants met the inclusion criteria. The pooled prevalence of internet addiction among Asian college students was 24.3% (95% confidence interval: 19.8%-29.5%, Q = 6234, df = 44, τ2 = 0.79, I2 = 99.29%), and strikingly, this percentage increased over time. A high degree of heterogeneity was seen, and no publication bias was found.

CONCLUSIONS

To our knowledge, this is the first comprehensive review report on Asian college students, which found that one-fifth suffer from internet addiction. The findings emphasize the significance of multidisciplinary prevention and management strategies to mitigate the harmful effects of internet addiction. Further research is warranted to develop a standardized diagnostic tool for a more precise estimation of internet addiction among this population.

Impact of increased digital use and internet gaming on nursing students' empathy: A cross-sectional study

BACKGROUND

The COVID-19 restrictions and quarantines had led to increased dependence and usage of digital devices for various human activities and internet gaming to the extent of risking vulnerable individuals to develop addiction towards it. Little is known on such risks among populations of nursing students and its impact on their empathy skills or trait.

OBJECTIVE

Determining the impact of digital use and internet gaming on empathy of nursing students undergoing remote learning during closure of learning institutions nationwide.

DESIGN

Cross-sectional online survey was conducted from October to December 2020.

SETTINGS

Two established public institutions located in Malaysia.

PARTICIPANTS

A total of 345 nursing students pursuing diploma and bachelor nursing programs.

METHODS

Toronto Empathy Questionnaire (TEQ), Digital Addiction Scale (DAS) and Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short form (IGDS9-SF) were self-administered via Google Form™. Following principal component analysis of TEQ using IBM-SPSS™ (V-27), path analyses was performed using SmartPLS™ (V-3).

RESULTS

Despite the increased time spent on digital devices (∆ 2.8 h/day) and internet gaming (∆ 1 h/week) before and during the pandemic, the proportion of high digital users (1.4 %) and gamers (20.9 %) were low; and sizable ≈75 % had higher-than-normal empathy. Digital-related emotions and overuse of them were associated with lower empathy (β = -0.111, -0.192; p values < 0.05) and higher callousness (β = 0.181, 0.131; p values < 0.05); internet gaming addiction predicted callousness (β = 0.265, p < 0.001) but digital dependence correlated with higher empathy (β = 0.172, p = 0.009).

CONCLUSIONS

Digital and internet gaming addiction potentially impact empathy. The negative impact of digital dependence can be attenuated by "digital empathy" - an emerging phenomenon becoming increasingly vital in digital health and communication.

Addictive Features of Social Media/Messenger Platforms and Freemium Games against the Background of Psychological and Economic Theories

Currently about 2.71 billion humans use a smartphone worldwide. Although smartphone technology has brought many advances, a growing number of scientists discuss potential detrimental effects due to excessive smartphone use. Of importance, the likely culprit to understand over-usage is not the smartphone itself, but the excessive use of applications installed on smartphones. As the current business model of many app-developers foresees an exchange of personal data for allowance to use an app, it is not surprising that many design elements can be found in social media apps and Freemium games prolonging app usage. It is the aim of the present work to analyze several prominent smartphone apps to carve out such elements. As a result of the analysis, a total of six different mechanisms are highlighted to illustrate the prevailing business model in smartphone app development. First, these app-elements are described and second linked to classic psychological/economic theories such as the mere-exposure effect, endowment effect, and Zeigarnik effect, but also to psychological mechanisms triggering social comparison. It is concluded that many of the here presented app-elements on smartphones are able to prolong usage time, but it is very hard to understand such an effect on the level of a single element. A systematic analysis would require insights into app data usually only being available for the app-designers, but not for independent scientists. Nevertheless, the present work supports the notion that it is time to critically reflect on the prevailing business model of 'user data in exchange for app-use allowance'. Instead of using a service in exchange for data, it ultimately might be better to ban or regulate certain design elements in apps to come up with less addictive products. Instead, users could pay a reasonable fee for an app service.