Internet use during COVID-19 lockdown among young people in low- and middle-income countries: Role of psychological wellbeing.

https://www.mdpi.com/2227-9032/10/8/1448/pdf?version=1660809674

Internet-Related Instruments (Bergen Social Media Addiction Scale, Smartphone Application-Based Addiction Scale, Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form, and Nomophobia Questionnaire) and Their Associations with Distress among Malaysian University Students

Background: COVID-19 pandemic has affected the physical health, psychological wellbeing, and mental health of the whole population. Young people are among those most at risk of developing mental health symptoms or disorders related to the pandemic. Purpose: the present narrative review is aimed at providing an updated overview of the current literature concerning the psychological impact of the SARS-CoV-2 infection but also of the COVID-19 outbreak, environmental restriction, and social distancing on mental health outcomes among the youth population aged between 15 and 25 years. Methods: in December 2021, an electronic search on this topic was performed on PubMed. Relevant publications from January 2020 until December 2021 were included. Findings: 53 cross-sectional studies, 26 longitudinal studies, 4 ecological studies, 1 qualitative study, and 1 systematic review were included. We found many methodological limitations in the studies included, especially poor choice of study samples and short follow-ups. Little literature was in support of a strong relationship between SARS-CoV-2 infection and consequences on youth mental health. On the contrary, many studies showed how extraordinary measures to limit the spread of the virus have impacted young people in terms of onset of new mental disorders and symptoms, suicidality, and access to emergency psychiatric services. Depressive and anxiety symptoms and disorders show the greatest increase in incidence, especially in girls and young women. Conclusions: it seems important to pay attention to the mental health of young people in relation to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, studies with more robust methodologies and longer follow-ups are needed to establish precise indications for targeted interventions in this context.

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The Impact of SARS-CoV-2 Infection on Youth Mental Health: A Narrative Review

Internet addiction (IA) is widespread, comorbid with other conditions, and commonly undetected, which may impede recovery. The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) is widely used to evaluate IA among healthy respondents, with less agreement on its dimensional structure. This study investigated the factor structure, invariance, predictive validity, criterion validity, and reliability of the IAT among Spanish women with eating disorders (EDs, N = 123), Chinese school children (N = 1072), and Malay/Chinese university students (N = 1119). In school children, four factors with eigen values > 1 explained 50.2% of the variance, with several items cross-loading on more than two factors and three items failing to load on any factor. Among 19 tested models, CFA revealed excellent fit of a unidimensional six-item IAT among ED women and university students (χ2(7) = 8.695, 35.038; p = 0.275, 0.001; CFI = 0.998, 981; TLI = 0.996, 0.960; RMSEA = 0.045, 0.060; SRMR = 0.0096, 0.0241). It was perfectly invariant across genders, academic grades, majors, internet use activities, nationalities (Malay vs. Chinese), and Malay/Chinese female university students vs. Spanish women with anorexia nervosa, albeit it was variant at the scalar level in tests involving other EDs, signifying increased tendency for IA in pathological overeating. The six-item IAT correlated with the effects of internet use on academic performance at a greater level than the original IAT (r = −0.106, p < 0.01 vs. r = −0.78, p < 0.05), indicating superior criterion validity. The six-item IAT is a robust and brief measure of IA in healthy and diseased individuals from different cultures.

The Six-Item Version of the Internet Addiction Test: Its Development, Psychometric Properties, and Measurement Invariance among Women with Eating Disorders and Healthy School and University Students

Studies in recent years and especially since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic have shown a significant increase in the problematic use of computer games and social media. Adolescents having difficulties in regulating their unpleasant emotions are especially prone to Problematic Internet Use (PIU), which is why emotion dysregulation has been considered a risk factor for PIU. The aim of the present study was to assess problematic internet use (PIU) in adolescents after the third wave (nearly 1.5 years after the onset in Europe) of the COVID-19 pandemic. In the German region of Siegen-Wittgenstein, all students 12 years and older from secondary-level schools, vocational schools and universities were offered a prioritized vaccination in August 2021 with an approved vaccine against COVID-19. In this context, the participants filled out the Short Compulsive Internet Use Scale (SCIUS) and two additional items to capture a possible change in digital media usage time and regulation of negative affect due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A multiple regression analysis was performed to identify predictors of PIU. The original sample consisted of 1477 participants, and after excluding invalid cases the final sample size amounted to 1268 adolescents aged 12–17 (x = 14.37 years, SD = 1.64). The average prevalence of PIU was 43.69%. Gender, age, digital media usage time and the intensity of negative emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic were all found to be significant predictors of PIU: female gender, increasing age, longer digital media usage time and higher intensity of negative emotions during the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with higher SCIUS total scores. This study found a very high prevalence of PIU among 12- to 17-year-olds for the period after the third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has increased significantly compared to pre-pandemic prevalence rates. PIU is emerging as a serious problem among young people in the pandemic. Besides gender and age, pandemic-associated time of digital media use and emotion regulation have an impact on PIU, which provides starting points for preventive interventions.

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Caner Aydin

Papers

Internet use during COVID-19 lockdown among young people in low- and middle-income countries: Role of psychological wellbeing.

Psychometric properties of the compulsive internet use scale among adolescents in India, Philippines and Turkey.