Word Count: Date: 19/11/2010

Li Chun Ho (Alvin) IB Psychology HL

Psychology Assignment: APFCC + Ha/He/HO + IV/DV + Ethnics on Internet Addition Article. Aims: The aim of the research study led by Catriona M. Morrison of the Psychology team at Leeds University was to find out if individuals who spent a majority of time at the online web be suffering from depression. By doing so, they strived to detect the relationship between being addictive toward the internet and symptoms of depression, such as pessimistic ideation and maladaptive thoughts. Procedures: The study was carried out by the means of using 1319 participants who were recruited from online social community sites. They were then to complete a survey revolving around the topics of frequency using the internet, for what purposes and assessing if they suffered from depression. This study was conducted in the field, and is also a repeated measure, where they kept the control variable of the age group to be between 16 and 51, where the average age of the participants were at 21. Moreover, they acknowledged and took note of the gender of the participant during their completion of the questionnaire in order to discover if there were any major gender differences between them or not. After all of the questionnaires were read and analyzed by the team, the researchers evaluated the results based on three scales, including the IA (Internet Addiction) test, the Internet Function Questionnaire as well as the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI). Findings: The findings collected 1.2 % of the participants, 18 of them, to be classified as having internet addiction. It was seen these participants were clearly more depressed when cross-examining their test results on questions regarding depression. Likewise, the participants who were classified as NA (Non-Addicted) to have significantly lower depression scores compared to those who were heavily internet addicts. In addition, in regard to gender, it is seen that men are more addictive towards the internet compared to the opposite sex, the women. Conclusions: As a conclusion, it is seen more people suffering from depression appear to be taking their exhaustion as well as unhappiness towards the consumption of Internet. It also suggests the internet acts as a replacement to their social life, since people who have depression in general do not wish to talk and be well engaged into social events as well as functions. Criticisms: Although the research study is quite concise and thorough, it appears the research team did not use a stratified sample of the population because they hired individuals on social-networking sites. They only used this form of recruitment but did not use other methods to hire participants. Hence other individuals who also use internet to some extent are excluded from the experiment, which therefore affects the accuracy of the experiment. Furthermore, the research team did not acknowledge factors

Word Count: Date: 19/11/2010

Li Chun Ho (Alvin) IB Psychology HL

Psychology Assignment: APFCC + Ha/He/HO + IV/DV + Ethnics on Internet Addition Article. that may lead depression sufferers to take refugee on the internet. There are numerous causes for their depression, ranging from sexual abuse in childhood to possibly down to genetics, a biological factor. Without the recognition of these factors, it is of difficulty to understand why not everyone depressed turns to the Internet and become heavily obsessed and captivated by it. Ha/He/Ho: The experiment appears to be a Ha, alternative hypothesis as the research team wants to find a connection between internet addicts and people suffering from depression symptoms. Independent Variable: Whether the participant was an internet addict or not. Dependent Variable: The degree of depression suffered by those internet addicts. Ethnics: Because the article and research report does not mention any principles of ethnics broken, we would be in the assumption that none of them were broken indeed.