Internet addiction, temperament, and the moderator role of family emotional involvement

Abstract

This study examined the relationship between internet addiction, temperament, and family functioning focusing on the unique and common contribution that temperament and family functioning made to internet addiction. A total of 320 adolescents (164 boys and 156 girls), from 15 to 17 years (M = 16.06, SD = 0.59), completed measures of internet addiction, temperament, and family functioning. Data showed that salience, as the ability of internet to change negatively person’s life, was predicted positively by temperament linked to lack of control and by the perception of low level of familial emotional involvement. Results also revealed that family affective involvement played a moderating role in the relationship between temperamental lack of control and salience of internet, such that both at lower and higher levels of lack of control, internet salience tended to be lower when family affective involvement was high and to be higher when family affective involvement was low.