Comparison of impulsivity, alexitimia and self-harming behaviors in students with Internet addiction and normal students

Behavioral dependence on the Internet, regardless of whether it is considered a psychological injury or a social problem, is a chronic and recurrent phenomenon that is associated with serious physical, financial, family, social and psychological harm, and in this regard, factors such as psychological, Cognitive, familial and social factors are involved. The goal of this study is to investigate the Comparison of impulsivity, Alexitima and self-harming behaviors in students with Internet addiction and normal students.

The research was causal-comparative. The statistical population included all undergraduate girl students of Kosar University of Bojnord in the academic year 1399-1400, of which  140 of them (70 internet addicted students and 70 regular students) were selected by convenience sampling method. The Young Internet Addiction Questionnaire (1996), the Toronto Alexitima Questionnaire (1994), the Bart Impulsivity Questionnaire (2004), and the Samson Self-Injury Questionnaire (1988) were used. The results were analyzed by multivariate analysis of variance in SPSS-20 software.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between Internet addicts and normal students in terms of impulsivity, Alexitima, self-harming behavior and subscales of cognitive, motor, unplanned impulsivity, difficulty in recognizing emotions, difficulty in describing emotions and objective thinking (P<0.05).

It can be concluded that Internet addicted students have more impulsivity, Alexitima and self-harming behavior than normal students.