Department of Psychology, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
Institute for Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Shahid Beheshti University, Tehran, Iran.
BMC Psychol. 2022 Mar 26;10(1):80. doi: 10.1186/s40359-022-00745-4.
Higher education students are heavy users of the internet for a wide variety of reasons, including Social Networking Sites (SNSs). This study investigated various purposes of internet use among undergraduate university students, and how different categories of such activities are related to SNS addiction.
The sample set from 420 SNS users (280 females), a survey questionnaire was used to collect the information, including demographic information, purposes for internet usage (social, entertainment, academic, and economic purposes), and SNS addiction. Descriptive statistics, correlation, and a path diagram to estimate the regression coefficients were used to examine the data.
Findings revealed that the most common purposes for using the internet were online social networking and information seeking, followed by listening to music or watching movies, learning, relaxing, using email for educational needs, and reading socio-political news. In the comparison between categories of purposes for internet usage, the most prevalent group of purposes were academic and informative, recreational, social, and economic categories respectively. Moreover, the most significant influences belonged to the social group [positively], the academic and informative group (negatively), and the recreational group (positively) on SNS addiction respectively. The economic group of purposes did not have a significant influence on SNS addiction.
This study has important implications for education and health providers, particularly in universities; we recommend that they try to improve students' mental health and academic performance by providing opportunities for them to improve their IT literacy and skills.
出于各种原因，包括社交网站 (SNS)，高等教育学生是互联网的重度使用者。本研究调查了大学生使用互联网的各种目的，以及不同类别的此类活动与 SNS 成瘾之间的关系。
该样本集来自 420 名 SNS 用户（280 名女性），使用问卷调查收集信息，包括人口统计学信息、互联网使用目的（社交、娱乐、学术和经济目的）和 SNS 成瘾。使用描述性统计、相关和路径图来估计回归系数来检查数据。
研究结果表明，使用互联网最常见的目的是在线社交网络和信息搜索，其次是听音乐或看电影、学习、放松、使用电子邮件满足教育需求和阅读社会政治新闻。在互联网使用目的类别之间的比较中，最常见的目的分别是学术和信息、娱乐、社交和经济类别。此外，对 SNS 成瘾影响最大的分别是社交群体[积极]、学术和信息群体（消极）和娱乐群体（积极）。经济目的群体对 SNS 成瘾没有显著影响。
本研究对教育和卫生提供者具有重要意义，特别是在大学；我们建议他们通过为学生提供提高他们的 IT 素养和技能的机会，努力改善他们的心理健康和学习成绩。
