Courses of excessive Internet use within families (VEIF)
Third party funded individual grant
Acronym:
VEIF
Start date :
08.04.2015
End date :
31.07.2018
Extension date:
31.10.2021
Website:
https://www.medpaed.phil.fau.de/forschung/veif/
Project details
Scientific Abstract
Excessive Internet use by adolescents is currently not only discussed in public media but also studied in depth by various academic disciplines. Systematic literature search provides us with international studies that suggest a connection between family influence and excessive Internet use by adolescents. But longitudinal studies that shed light on this connection are not available so far. Consequently, our research project focusses on the course of excessive Internet use by adolescents emphasizing the role of families. The leading research questions are: Why and during which phase of life does the adolescent start to use the Internet in an excessive or pathological way? When does this usage, if so, abate? In which way is the individual course of development influenced by the family? We will collect quantitative data on the phenomenon of excessive Internet use, its development and the family's influence over a period of 24 months. Excessive Internet use becomes a problem within families if it is perceived as such by the family members. For that matter, the perspective of the parents is not necessarily shared by the adolescents. At the same time, the phenomena that are perceived as problem do not always meet the scientific definitions of excessive Internet use. Therefore, our study is based on a model that takes both the subjective view of the parties concerned (adolescents and parents) and the scientific perspective on the problem of excessive Internet use into account. Based on a problem group, in which at least the parent or the adolescent perceive a problem related to media usage, it is the target of this panel study to observe mainly the course and development of excessive Internet use. Central points of research comprise the study of family relations and interactions (i.a. FB-S, SFB, KV-Fam) as well as media education. To include the scientific perspective, we will employ an instrument measuring excessive Internet use (CIUS). The problem group shall be compared to families without any problem definition by drawing on a reference group. To meet the requirements of the described model, we will interview one adolescent and one parent (a family dyad) in each case. The data collection based on standardized interviews comprises three waves with 700 family dyads, of which 500 families shall form the problem group and 200 families the reference group.
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