The Role of Family in High School Student's Internet Addiction

Considering the destructive effects of Internet addiction on users’ personal, family, and social life, the purpose of the present research was to determine the family factors which play a role in students’ Internet addiction. Population of the study comprised all Iranian high school students and the sample consisted of 4155 students who were selected through multi-stage cluster sampling in 11 provinces. In each city, systematic random sampling was utilized and the sampling units consisted of classes which were selected taking proportion of gender and grade level into account. The instrumentation was comprised of Young’s Internet Addition Scale, Bell’s Adjustment Scale, and a self-devised family factors checklist. The results of the study revealed that Internet addiction had a significant relationship with the extent of family adjustment and family relationship, the degree of family’s familiarity with the Internet, family structure, birth order, number of siblings, parents’ education level, and family’s economic status. In addition, family adjustment and family relationship as well as the degree of family’s familiarity with the Internet are the factors which predict students’ Internet addiction the most and they account for 33 percent of the total variance in the Internet addiction. Based on the findings of the present study it can be concluded that various family factors have associations with students’ Internet addiction. Thus, reinforcing family structure and resolving families structural and relationship issues can be deterrents to students’ Internet addiction.