The theoretical part of the Master's thesis deals with the causes, harmful dimensions and consequences of problematic internet use among adolescents, loneliness, and perceived social support and findings on the interactions and effects on the psychophysical health and life of adolescents.
In the empirical part, a sample of adolescents from the last triad of elementary schools (aged 13-15) was studied and shows statistically significant connections between problematic internet use, loneliness and perceived social support. Differences in problematic internet use, experiencing loneliness and having family support, related to place of residence have not been confirmed, nor is owning a pet being a distinctive factor in problematic internet use and experiencing loneliness. However, we found that problematic internet use and loneliness differed statistically significantly between genders. We confirmed that problematic internet use varies between the classes attended, but only when we also take the gender into consideration. We also confirmed that experiencing loneliness differs statistically significantly depending on the daily time spent on the internet. By regression analysis, we predicted the loneliness variable based on independent variables of gender, place of residence, owning a pet, perceived social support, and problematic Internet use significantly better than predicting the average of independent variables for all values of the dependent variable.
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