The aim of this Master Thesis was to investigate the relationship between problematic internet use (PIU) in adolescents and some aspects of family climate. Family climate is affected by varying parenting styles, attachment styles, approaches to decision-making and problem-solving etc. The adolescent as well as his family as a system progress through certain developmental stages while enacting developmental roles. The family climate depends on how successfully these roles are performed. Moderating internet use represents a challenging task for an adolescent, therefore many fail to do it effectively and consequently develop PIU. This is at least partially attributed to familial and personal factors. PIU has a range of negative repercussions for the individual: preference for online over face-to-face interaction, frequent emotional regulation using the internet, compulsive internet use and cognitive overload.
The research involved 275 adolescents between 12 and 18 years of age, 40% of them were boys, 60% were girls. Aspects of family climate were measured with the Systemic Therapy Inventory of Change (Pinsof et al. 2009). Problematic internet use was determined with the Generalised Problematic Internet Use Scale 2 (Caplan, 2010). The results of our research confirm the relationship between some aspects of family climate and PIU. A positive atmosphere, clearly defined limits, family decision making process and family honour are negatively correlated to problematic internet use. A negative atmosphere and a feeling of being misunderstood on the other hand are positively correlated to problematic internet use, which means that those two aspects represent a risk for the development of PIU in adolescents. No differences in PIU were observed between boys and girls which implies that both require an equal amount of attention regarding PIU.
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