International Journal of Social Science Research (IJSSR)

Exploring the role of Dissociative experiences, Sleep quality, Perceived Social Support and Cyberbullying Victimization in Internet Addiction amongst Young Female Adults

Technology dependence is rife among young adults, manifesting both assets and liabilities. The major risk of excessive internet use is maladaptive internet addiction. The incidence of the same has also been extensively explored in relation with the fear of missing out (FOMO) and difficulties including emotional dysregulation. The study examined the link between Internet addiction, dissociative experiences, poor sleep quality, perceived social support and cyberbullying victimization. The sample consisted of 207 female young adults in the age group 18 to 24 years. ‘Internet Addiction Test’ (Young, 1998); ‘Dissociative Experiences Scale – II’ (Carlson & Putnam, 1993); ‘Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index’ (Buysse et al., 1989); ‘Multidimensional Scale of Perceived Social Support Scale’ (Zimet et al., 1988) and ‘Cyberbullying Victimization Scale’ (Lee et al., 2017) were used to assess the psychological correlates of Internet addiction. t Test was implemented to delve into the comparison of groups and Pearson correlation analysis was applied to identify associations amongst the variables. The results showed significant variance between the IA group and Non-IA group on Dissociative Experiences, Sleep Quality, Perceived Social Support and Cyberbullying Victimization. The present investigation showed the association of Internet addiction with Dissociative experiences, Poor sleep quality and Cyberbullying victimization. These findings could facilitate clinical assessment, prevention and outreach efforts, boost the under-recognition and understanding of features, predictors, and risk factors of IA in the youth.