Learned Helplessness and Internet Addiction Among Young Adults
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.69980/ajpr.v27i2.21Keywords:
Learned helplessness, Internet addiction, Perceived lack of control, Mixed-methods, Qualitative analysis, Thematic analysis.Abstract
Learned helplessness, a psychological concept suggesting individuals who have experienced repeated failures or a perceived lack of control over outcomes may develop a belief that they are powerless to change their circumstances, is often explored as a correlate of lack of control over addictive behaviours. This mixed-methods study aimed to investigate the impact of learned helplessness on individuals with Internet Addiction. The quantitative phase included 136 individuals with internet addiction (60 males and 76 females) aged 20 to 35 years. The Internet Addiction Diagnostic Questionnaire was used to screen for internet addiction, and the Learned Helplessness Scale was used to assess levels of learned helplessness. Statistical analyses, including independent sample t-tests, Pearson correlations, and regression analysis, were conducted. The quantitative results revealed a significant difference in learned helplessness between males and females with Internet addiction, with females exhibiting higher levels. A significant positive relationship was found between internet addiction and learned helplessness, and regression analysis indicated that learned helplessness significantly predicted internet addiction. However, no significant difference in the severity of internet addiction was found between males and females. Following the quantitative phase, a qualitative exploration was conducted using semi-structured interviews with a subset of participants. Thematic analysis of the interview data revealed key themes, including internet usage as a coping mechanism, social isolation, varying levels of insight into internet addiction and learned helplessness, personal and environmental triggers for internet use, the integration of internet use into daily schedules, and the loss of time sense. The qualitative findings provided rich contextual explanations for the quantitative results, particularly concerning the gender differences in learned helplessness and the mechanisms linking learned helplessness to internet addiction. This study highlights the complex interplay between learned helplessness and internet addiction, emphasizing the importance of considering both quantitative and qualitative perspectives in understanding and addressing this issue.
References
1. American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.).
2. ASAM. (2011). Public policy statement: definition of addiction (long version). American Society of Addiction Medicine.
3. Carter, A., & Hall, W. (2012). Addiction neuroethics: The promises and perils of neuroscience research on addiction. Cambridge University Press.
4. Carter, A., Capps, B., & Hall, W. (2009). Addiction neurobiology: Ethical and social implications. European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.
5. Chapman, S., & MacKenzie, R. (2010). The global research neglect of unassisted smoking cessation: Causes and consequences. PLoS Medicine, 7(2), e1000216.
6. Clarke, A. E., Shim, J. K., Mamo, L., Fosket, J. R., & Fishman, J. R. (2003). Biomedicalization: Technoscientific transformations of health, illness, and U.S. biomedicine. American Sociological Review, 68(2), 161–194.
7. Conrad, P. (1992). Medicalization and social control. Annual Review of Sociology, 18, 209–232.
8. Cunningham, J. A., & McCambridge, J. (2012). Is alcohol dependence best viewed as a chronic relapsing disorder? Addiction, 107(1), 6–12.
9. Cunningham, J. A., Blomqvist, J., & Cordingley, J. (2007). Beliefs about drinking problems: Results from a general population telephone survey. Addictive Behaviors, 32(1), 166–169.
10. Cunningham, J. A., Sobell, L. C., & Chow, V. M. (1993). What’s in a label? The effects of substance types and labels on treatment considerations and stigma. Journal of Studies on Alcohol, 54(6), 693–699.
11. Dackis, C., & O'Brien, C. (2005). Neurobiology of addiction: Treatment and public policy ramifications. Nature Neuroscience, 8(11), 1431–1436.
12. Dalla, C., Edgecomb, C., Whetstone, A. S., & Shors, T. J. (2008). Sex differences in learned helplessness. Neuropsychopharmacology, 33(7), 1559–1569.
13. Davies, J. B. (1998). Pharmacology versus social process: Competing or complementary views on the nature of addiction? Pharmacology & Therapeutics, 80(3), 265–275.
14. Dingel, M. J., Karkazis, K., & Koenig, B. A. (2011). Framing nicotine addiction as a “disease of the brain”: Social and ethical consequences. Social Science Quarterly, 92(5), 1363–1388.
15. Greene, J. D., Sommerville, R. B., Nystrom, L. E., Darley, J. M., & Cohen, J. D. (2001). An fMRI investigation of emotional engagement in moral judgment. Science, 293(5537), 2105–2108.
16. Illich, I. (1976). Medical nemesis: The expropriation of health. Random House.
17. Kessler, R. C., Nelson, C. B., McGonagle, K. A., Edlund, M. J., Frank, R. G., & Leaf, P. J. (1996). The epidemiology of co-occurring addictive and mental disorders: Implications for prevention and service utilization. The American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 66(1), 17–31.
18. Kuppin, S., & Carpiano, R. M. (2006). Public conceptions of serious mental illness and substance abuse, their causes and treatments: Findings from the 1996 general social survey. American Journal of Public Health, 96(10), 1766–1771.
19. Lam, D. C. K., Salkovskis, P. M., & Warwick, H. M. C. (2005). An experimental investigation of the impact of biological versus psychological explanations of the cause of “mental illness”. Journal of Mental Health, 14(5), 453–464.
20. Leshner, A. I. (1997). Addiction is a brain disease, and it matters. Science, 278(5335), 45–47.
21. Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2016). Learned helplessness at fifty: Insights from neuroscience. Psychological Review, 123(4), 349–367.
22. McCabe, D. P., & Castel, A. D. (2008). Seeing is believing: The effect of brain images on judgments of scientific reasoning. Cognition, 107(1), 343–352.
23. McLellan, A. T., Lewis, D. C., O’Brien, C. P., & Kleber, H. D. (2000). Drug dependence, a chronic medical illness: Implications for treatment, insurance, and outcomes evaluation. Journal of the American Medical Association, 284(13), 1689–1695.
24. Meurk, C., Carter, A., Hall, W., & Lucke, J. (2012). Public understandings of addiction: The impact of addiction neuroscience research. Neuroethics.
25. Moyers, T. B., & Miller, W. R. (1993). Therapists’ conceptualizations of alcoholism: Measurement and implications for treatment decisions. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 7(4), 238.
26. Netherland, J. (2011). “We haven’t sliced open anyone’s brain yet”: Neuroscience, embodiment and the governance of addiction. In M. Pickersgill & I. Van Keulen (Eds.), Sociological reflections on the neurosciences (pp. 153–177). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
27. Parr, J., & Rasmussen, N. (2012). Making addicts of the fat: Obesity, psychiatry and the ‘fatties anonymous’ model of self-help weight loss in the post-war United States. In Critical perspectives on addiction (pp. 181–200). Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
28. Pescosolido, B. A., Martin, J. K., Long, J. S., Medina, T. R., Phelan, J., & Link, B. (2010). “A disease like any other?”: A decade of change in public reactions to schizophrenia, depression, and alcohol dependence. The American Journal of Psychiatry, 167(11), 1321–1330.
29. Phelan, J. C. (2002). Genetic bases of mental illness—a cure for stigma? Trends in Neurosciences, 25(9), 430–431.
30. Pinto, R. M., Yu, G., Spector, A. Y., Gorroochurn, P., & McCarty, D. (2010). Substance abuse treatment providers’ involvement in research is associated with willingness to use findings in practice. Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, 39(2), 188–194.
31. Racine, E., Waldman, S., Illes, J., Rosenberg, J., & Palmour, R. (2007). “Currents of hope”: Neurostimulation techniques in U.S. and U.K. print media. Cambridge Quarterly of Healthcare Ethics, 16(3), 312–316.
32. World Health Organization. (2019). International classification of diseases for mortality and morbidity statistics (11th ed.).
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License permitting all use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the work is properly cited.
