Associations between social anxiety disorders and the social aspects of young people’s Internet and mobile phone use

Abstract

This thesis reports two surveys of young people’s use of the Internet and mobile phones. The first of these surveys was conducted on paper and provides a general description of young people’s Internet and mobile phone use in the Teesside area of England. The second survey was conducted online with a wider population and provides data to support the paper survey. Together, the surveys indicate that there may be a small bias towards male use of and competence with the Internet. There may also be a small bias towards female use of mobile phones. Results concerning non-use of the Internet and mobile phones are also discussed. Non-use of the Internet may often be due to a lack of access to facilities, and non-use of mobile phones may be due to a perceived lack of need for this technology. In addition, this thesis investigates relationships between social anxiety and social phobia and young people’s use of the Internet and mobile phones. It is revealed that associations between these conditions and use of these technologies, generally, and for communication purposes, are minimal. A Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) of the two scales used to measure social anxiety and social phobia, which confirms their suggested structure, is also presented by the thesis. Finally, a focus group study of young people’s Internet and mobile phone use, which was analysed using Grounded Theory, is described. This was conducted to allow issues other than social anxiety, which might be relevant to young people’s use of the Internet and mobile phones for communication purposes, to emerge. It was found that control over interactions might be one important reason why young people like to use text-based Internet and mobile phone communication media to interact.