Gender Differences in Internet Addiction among Adolescents: A Nationally Representative Survey in South Korea

A psychological disorder called ‘internet addiction' has newly emerged along with a dramatic increase of worldwide internet use over the last decade. Academic research on addictive internet use began in the mid 1990s; however, few studies have used nationally representative samples nor taken into account environmental or contextual effects on internet addiction. We identified 57,857 middle and high school students (13-18 year olds) from the nationally representative surveillance data, the Fifth Korean Youth Risk Behavior Web-based Survey. Internet addiction was assessed by a “Simplified Korean Internet Addiction Self-examination (KS scale)”. To identify gender differences in internet addiction etiology, two-level multilevel regression models were fitted separately by gender with individual-level responses (1st level) nested within schools (2nd level) to estimate the contributions of individual determinants and school context simultaneously. Among the individual-level factors, school grade, parental education, alcohol drinking, smoking consumption, and substance use showed differentiated effects on internet addiction by gender. Among school-level factors, female students in girls' school were more likely to be addicted to the internet than those in coeducational schools. We found gender differences in the prevalence of internet addiction and its associated predictors across individual- and school-level factors. Our results suggest the clinic treatment and policies on internet addiction should take into account not only intrapersonal characteristics but also the influences of family and school environment.