Social support as a mediator between internet addiction and quality of life among Chinese high school students

Jing Guo, Ning Huang, Mingqi Fu, Shuang Ma, Minglong Chen, Xiaohua Wang, Xing Lin Feng and Bo Zhang

Children and Youth Services Review, 2021, vol. 129, issue C

Abstract: Internet addiction among high school students is an emerging public health issue in China. The objective of this study was to investigate the association between internet addiction and quality of life, as well as the mediation effect of social support in such an association, among Chinese rural high school students. A total of 1277 high school students (mean age: 17.35 years; standard deviation: 1.39 years) from three rural high schools in the province of Henan in China were recruited. Internet addiction was measured by the Young’s Internet Addiction Scale, quality of life was assessed with a 16-item Quality of Life Questionnaire, and social support was evaluated by the Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support. This study revealed that the prevalence rate of internet addiction was 11.51% among the participants. Internet addiction was negatively associated with overall quality of life (β = -0.06, p < 0.001) and its four dimensions (mental β = -0.09, p < 0.001, physical β = -0.09, p < 0.001, social β = -0.05, p = 0.04, and cultural β = -0.060, p = 0.012). The study also confirmed that social support from families, friends, and significant others mediates the negative association between internet indication and quality of life.

Keywords: Internet addiction; Quality of life; Social support; Chinese high school students (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0190740921002577
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:cysrev:v:129:y:2021:i:c:s0190740921002577

DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2021.106181

Access Statistics for this article

Children and Youth Services Review is currently edited by Duncan Lindsey

More articles in Children and Youth Services Review from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().