Interrelations Between Virtual-World and Real-World Activities: Comparison of Genders, Age Groups, and Pathological and Nonpathological Internet Users

After the Internet Revolution, people have started to spend most of their everyday time online carrying out virtual activities. A limited number of studies tried to answer whether virtual activities match our real-world (RW) activities. Moreover, to our knowledge, there was no study that dealt with these interrelations between virtual and RW activities among the pathological and nonpathological users of the Internet (i.e. PIUs and NPIUs). The primary aim of this study was to fill this gap and to investigate the correlations between virtual-world (VW) and RW activities among PIUs and NPIUs. The secondary aim was to examine the perceptions of the Internet and motivations to go online for PIUs and NPIUs. The third aim was to compare virtual and RW activities across gender and age groups. The results indicated that correlations between most of the activities in RW and VW were high among men and women, among age groups, and also among PIUs and NPUs. However, beyond these similarities, perceptions of the Internet and motivations to browse into VW were differed among PIUs and NPIUs. In other words, PIUs, but not NPIUs, perceived VW activities more gratified and had motivations to go online for gratified functions.

[1]  Murat Iskender,et al.  Self-Compassion and Internet Addiction. , 2011 .

[2]  Özgür Erdur-Baker,et al.  Cyberbullying and its correlation to traditional bullying, gender and frequent and risky usage of internet-mediated communication tools , 2010, New Media Soc..

[3]  J. Morahan-Martin,et al.  Incidence and correlates of pathological Internet use among college students ? ? Portions of this pa , 2000 .

[4]  Nick Yee,et al.  Motivations for Play in Online Games , 2006, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[5]  José Gutiérrez-Maldonado,et al.  Identifying Specific Cues and Contexts Related to Smoking Craving for the Development of Effective Virtual Environments , 2011, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[6]  P. Valkenburg,et al.  Preadolescents' and adolescents' online communication and their closeness to friends. , 2007, Developmental psychology.

[7]  Stephanie M. Reich,et al.  Online and Offline Social Networks: Use of Social Networking Sites by Emerging Adults , 2008 .

[8]  Justin W. Patchin,et al.  Bullying, Cyberbullying, and Suicide , 2010, Archives of suicide research : official journal of the International Academy for Suicide Research.

[9]  J. Galen Buckwalter,et al.  Sex differences in mental rotation and spatial rotation in a virtual environment , 2004, Neuropsychologia.

[10]  Chien Chou,et al.  Internet addiction, usage, gratification, and pleasure experience: the Taiwan college students' case , 2000, Comput. Educ..

[11]  D. L. Swanson,et al.  Gratification seeking, media exposure, and audience interpretations: Some directions for research , 1987 .

[12]  Richard A. Davis,et al.  Validation of a New Scale for Measuring Problematic Internet Use: Implications for Pre-employment Screening , 2002, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[13]  Julia Riebel,et al.  Cyberbullying in Germany - an exploration of prevalence, overlapping with real life bullying and coping strategies , 2009 .

[14]  Man Kit Chang,et al.  Factor structure for Young's Internet Addiction Test: A confirmatory study , 2008, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[15]  Nick Yee,et al.  The Demographics, Motivations, and Derived Experiences of Users of Massively Multi-User Online Graphical Environments , 2006, PRESENCE: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments.

[16]  Fatih Bayraktar,et al.  Incidence and Correlates of Internet Usage Among Adolescents in North Cyprus , 2007, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[17]  Eric B. Weiser,et al.  Gender Differences in Internet Use Patterns and Internet Application Preferences: A Two-Sample Comparison , 2000, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[18]  Detlef Fetchenhauer,et al.  Cyberbullying: Who Are the Victims? , 2009, J. Media Psychol. Theor. Methods Appl..

[19]  Viktor Brenner.  Psychology of Computer Use: XLVII. Parameters of Internet Use, Abuse and Addiction: The First 90 Days of the Internet Usage Survey , 1997, Psychological reports.

[20]  Kimberly Young,et al.  Internet Addiction: The Emergence of a New Clinical Disorder , 1998, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[21]  D. Kivlahan,et al.  Addictive behaviors: etiology and treatment. , 1988, Annual review of psychology.

[22]  Eric Zhi-Feng Liu,et al.  Effects of an Online Rational Emotive Curriculum on Primary School Students' Tendencies for Online and Real-World Aggression. , 2011 .

[23]  Michael Tlauka,et al.  Gender differences in spatial knowledge acquired through simulated exploration of a virtual shopping centre , 2005 .

[24]  C. Lopes,et al.  The lack of selection bias in a snowball sampled case-control study on drug abuse. , 1996, International journal of epidemiology.

[25]  Giuliano Carlo Geminiani,et al.  Spatial navigation in large-scale virtual environments: Gender differences in survey tasks , 2008, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[26]  Scott E. Caplan.  Problematic Internet use and psychosocial well-being: development of a theory-based cognitive-behavioral measurement instrument , 2002, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[27]  Lindsay H. Shaw,et al.  Users Divided? Exploring the Gender Gap in Internet Use , 2002, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[28]  Shu Ching Yang,et al.  Comparison of Internet addicts and non-addicts in Taiwanese high school , 2005, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[29]  K. Scherer.  College Life On-Line: Healthy and Unhealthy Internet Use. , 1997 .

[30]  Johann Füller,et al.  Avatar-based innovation: Using virtual worlds for real-world innovation , 2009 .

[31]  Robert LaRose,et al.  Internet Gratifications and Internet Addiction: On the Uses and Abuses of New Media , 2004, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[32]  E. Bekiaris,et al.  Neurophysiological Age Differences During Task-Performance in a Stereoscopic Virtual Environment , 2005, Applied psychophysiology and biofeedback.

[33]  Sujin Lee,et al.  Internet Over-Users' Psychological Profiles: A Behavior Sampling Analysis on Internet Addiction , 2003, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[34]  Chin-Chung Tsai,et al.  Sensation seeking and internet dependence of Taiwanese high school adolescents , 2000, Comput. Hum. Behav..

[35]  Isto Huvila,et al.  Social capital in Second Life , 2010, Online Inf. Rev..

[36]  Ingo Aberle,et al.  Age and individual differences in prospective memory during a "Virtual Week": the roles of working memory, vigilance, task regularity, and cue focality. , 2010, Psychology and aging.