Social Anxiety in Online and Real-Life Interaction and Their Associated Factors

Social anxiety was compared between online and real-life interaction in a sample of 2,348 college students. Severity of social anxiety in both real-life and online interaction was tested for associations with depression, Internet addiction, Internet activity type (gaming versus chatting), and scores on Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS)/Behavioral Activation System (BAS) scales. The results showed that social anxiety was lower when interacting online than when interacting offline. Depression, Internet addiction, and high BIS and BAS scores were associated with high social anxiety. The social anxiety decreased more in online interaction among subjects with high social anxiety, depression, BIS, and BAS. This result suggests that the Internet has good potential as an alternative medium for delivering interventions for social anxiety. Further, the effect of BIS on social anxiety is decreased in online interaction. More attention should be paid for BIS when the treatment for social anxiety is delivered online.

[1]  B. Sadock,et al.  Kaplan and Sadock's synopsis of psychiatry , 1998 .

[2]  Louis Leung,et al.  Net-Generation Attributes and Seductive Properties of the Internet as Predictors of Online Activities and Internet Addiction , 2004, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[3]  Janet B W Williams.  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders , 2013 .

[4]  R. Kessler,et al.  Twelve-month use of mental health services in the United States: results from the National Comorbidity Survey Replication. , 2005, Archives of general psychiatry.

[5]  Giuseppe Riva,et al.  The Sociocognitive Psychology of Computer-Mediated Communication: The Present and Future of Technology-Based Interactions , 2002, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[6]  D. Clark,et al.  Imagery and interpretations in social phobia: support for the combined cognitive biases hypothesis. , 2006, Behavior therapy.

[7]  R. Kessler,et al.  Social fears and social phobia in a community sample of adolescents and young adults: prevalence, risk factors and co-morbidity , 1999, Psychological Medicine.

[8]  Dan J Stein,et al.  Gray's BIS/BAS dimensions in non-comorbid, non-medicated social anxiety disorder , 2009, The world journal of biological psychiatry : the official journal of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry.

[9]  D. Hope,et al.  Cognitive-behavioral approaches to the treatment of social anxiety disorder. , 2009, The Israel journal of psychiatry and related sciences.

[10]  Chih-Hung Ko,et al.  Proposed diagnostic criteria and the screening and diagnosing tool of Internet addiction in college students. , 2009, Comprehensive psychiatry.

[11]  F. Caspar,et al.  Internet-based treatment for social phobia: a randomized controlled trial. , 2009, Journal of clinical psychology.

[12]  M. Keller,et al.  Social anxiety disorder clinical course and outcome: review of Harvard/Brown Anxiety Research Project (HARP) findings. , 2006, The Journal of clinical psychiatry.

[13]  M. Leary.  A Brief Version of the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale , 1983 .

[14]  D. Hirshfeld-Becker,et al.  The developmental psychopathology of social anxiety disorder , 2002, Biological Psychiatry.

[15]  Dan J Stein,et al.  Social anxiety disorder , 2003, The world journal of biological psychiatry : the official journal of the World Federation of Societies of Biological Psychiatry.

[16]  C. Ko,et al.  The association between harmful alcohol use and Internet addiction among college students: Comparison of personality , 2009, Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences.

[17]  Janet Morahan-Martin,et al.  The Relationship Between Loneliness and Internet Use and Abuse , 1999, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[18]  M. Zimmerman,et al.  Does comorbid Social Anxiety Disorder impact the clinical presentation of principal Major Depressive Disorder? , 2007, Journal of affective disorders.

[19]  Søren Risløv.  Threatening faces and social anxiety: A literature review , 2010 .

[20]  R. Heimberg.  Cognitive-behavioral therapy for social anxiety disorder: current status and future directions , 2002, Biological Psychiatry.

[21]  James C. McCroskey,et al.  ORAL COMMUNICATION APPREHENSION: A SUMMARY OF RECENT THEORY AND RESEARCH , 1977 .

[22]  C. Carver,et al.  Behavioral inhibition, behavioral activation, and affective responses to impending reward and punishment: The BIS/BAS Scales , 1994 .

[23]  C. Ko,et al.  Predictive values of psychiatric symptoms for internet addiction in adolescents: a 2-year prospective study. , 2009, Archives of pediatrics & adolescent medicine.

[24]  L. Weng,et al.  Development of a Chinese Internet addiction scale and its psychometric study , 2003 .

[25]  S. M. Ketrow,et al.  Social Anxiety and Performance in an Interpersonal Perception Task , 1997, Psychological reports.

[26]  L. Radloff.  The CES-D Scale , 1977 .

[27]  Nickolai Titov,et al.  Internet-delivered psychotherapy for depression in adults , 2011, Current opinion in psychiatry.

[28]  M. Stein,et al.  Social anxiety disorder and social fears in the Canadian military: prevalence, comorbidity, impairment, and treatment-seeking. , 2010, Journal of psychiatric research.

[29]  C. Nemeroff,et al.  The neurobiology of social anxiety disorder: the relevance of fear and anxiety , 2003, Acta psychiatrica Scandinavica. Supplementum.

[30]  L. Claes,et al.  Gray's Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory as a framework for research on personality-psychopathology associations. , 2009, Clinical psychology review.

[31]  Brandon E. Gibb,et al.  Retrospective reports of behavioral inhibition and young adults' current symptoms of social anxiety, depression, and anxious arousal. , 2009, Journal of anxiety disorders.

[32]  J. Davidson,et al.  Impact of depressive symptoms on the treatment of generalized social anxiety disorder , 2005, Depression and anxiety.

[33]  Dan J Stein,et al.  Pharmacotherapy for social anxiety disorder: a systematic review , 2008, Expert review of neurotherapeutics.

[34]  C. Ko,et al.  The comorbid psychiatric symptoms of Internet addiction: attention deficit and hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), depression, social phobia, and hostility. , 2007, The Journal of adolescent health : official publication of the Society for Adolescent Medicine.

[35]  Chien Cp,et al.  Depression in Taiwan: epidemiological survey utilizing CES-D. , 1985 .

[36]  Holly Schiffrin,et al.  The Associations among Computer-Mediated Communication, Relationships, and Well-being , 2010, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[37]  R. O’Brien,et al.  A Caution Regarding Rules of Thumb for Variance Inflation Factors , 2007 .