Research on the influence of internet use on adolescents’ self

Abstract

The paper explored the influence of Internet use on adolescents’ self-construal and body esteem. Experiment 1 investigated the relationship between Internet use behavior and self-constructional types of 886 adolescents by questionnaire and Self-constructional Scale. The results show that the interdependent-self have a stronger motivation to use the Internet to communicate in order to keep in touch with others and integrate into the group. And they pay more attention to their privacy. However, the independent-self tend to update their status on the Internet, who don’t care too much about the self-image management on the Internet or whether the published status leaking personal information. But none of the result reached significant levels. Experiment 2 investigated the influence of Internet use on body esteem of 240 middle school students by questionnaire and Body Esteem Scale. The results show that there is a significant difference in body esteem on genders. The correlation between boys’ Internet use and body esteem is significant and positive, especially in the dimension of physical attractiveness and upper body strength. There is no significant correlation between Internet use and body esteem in girls.