Are males more likely to be addicted to the internet than females? A meta-analysis involving 34 global jurisdictions

Abstract Internet addiction (IA) is prevalent and associated with negative measures of health functioning, with males appearing more vulnerable than females. However, little is known about gender-related differences in the effect sizes of IA globally. This multinational meta-analysis addresses this gap in knowledge by providing estimates of effect sizes of gender-related differences in IA tendencies across jurisdictions and how they relate to global national indexes including gross domestic product (GDP) per capita, internet penetration, gender-related gaps in economies, internet penetration, alcohol consumption, smoking prevalence, life satisfaction and suicide rates. One-hundred-and-one studies consisting of 115 independent samples involving 204,352 participants from 34 countries/regions were identified. The average effect size of gender-related differences in IA in a random-effects model was small at g = 0.145. The highest gender-related effect sizes were in Asia with g = 0.208, and the lowest were in the North America with g = −0.049, Africa with g = 0.092 and Europe with g = 0.114. Meta-regression revealed that smaller effect sizes were observed in nations with greater GDP per capita and higher internet penetration. As operationalized, both the internet availability and social norms hypotheses were supported by effect sizes being positively related to gender-related differences in economic measures, internet penetration, smoking prevalence and alcohol consumption. The Psychological Well-being hypothesis was largely not supported, since the effect sizes were unrelated to gender-related differences in life satisfaction and negatively related to gender-related differences in suicide rates. Findings suggest economic factors, internet availability, social norms and some addiction-related health factors may relate importantly to gender-related differences in IA tendencies across countries.