MITIGATING RISKS OF DIGITAL ADDICTION AMONG ADOLESCENTS IN MALAYSIA: A CONCEPTUAL E- ADDICT FRAMEWORK
Hanifah Abdul Hamidi, Nuradli Ridzwan Shah Mohd Daliii, Azreena Abu Bakariii &
Farhana Sabriiv
i (Corresponding author). Senior Lecturer, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia. [email protected]
ii Associate Professor, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia. [email protected]
iii Lecturer,. Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia. [email protected]
iv Senior Lecturer, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia. [email protected]
Abstract
Digital addiction among society has been a universal problem to many countries in the world. This addiction includes their excessive use of the digital electronics gadgets which are linked to the internet and are used for activities such as online-gaming, gambling and surfing social networking sites. These compulsive behaviours have caused negative effects to the addicts that lead to stress and major depressions, which in turn cause low quality of life.
However, many previous studies mainly focus on factors and impact of digital addiction but is lacking in emphasizing on the prevention strategies in curbing digital addiction among adolescents in Malaysia. Therefore, this study aims at developing an integrated digital addiction prevention framework which can help the authority to detect, correct and prevent the internet addiction among Malaysian adolescents in the long run. This study will adapt a qualitative approach to which data will be collected using focus groups interviews from the adolescents and experts. This research is expected to produce a digital addiction prevention framework which can be used as a blueprint for combating digital addiction among adolescents in Malaysia.
Keywords: digital, addiction, behaviour, gadgets, compulsive.
INTRODUCTION
The advancement of information and communication technology has changed the people’s life styles. The ICT sophistication has made everything at ease.
Communication happens virtually, and information can be accessed at their fingertips regardless of their physical location so long there are digital communication platform and an internet connection.
fact, the people also bring their gadgets up to the literally everywhere just to ensure that they do not miss anything including calls, messages, news or live casts. As the name implies, electronic gadgets factually serve for everything – making and taking calls checking messages, socializing using all types of social media apps such as Instagram, Facebook and twitter, taking notes, scheduling activities, chatting, playing online games, online shopping and doing banking transactions. The capabilities have given huge advantages to the users.
Nevertheless, the excessive usage of electronic gadgets and internet comes with a hefty price - unhealthy excessive behaviour that leads to addiction if the usage is not under controlled.
Studies in internet addiction have been done for decades ever since internet came into reality. As early as 2000, Malaysian researchers embarked in this digital addiction research. However, many of these studies only explored the factors and causes associated with internet addiction and targeted medical students as their subjects under study. These studies are lacking ways and techniques to overcome such addiction. In reality, many people regardless of age range are trapped in these compulsive behaviours.
However, we are more interested on the impacts towards the adolescents. This is because studies show that this category of people are proven to have access to the digital gadgets and have the ability spend longer time using these gadgets for socializing, playing games and other online activities. Thus, our study would like to answer the following research questions; 1) What are the possible risks factors and impact of digital addiction among adolescents in Malaysia and 2) How can digital addiction risks be mitigated among these people?
DIGITAL ADDICTION DEFINITIONS
Digital addiction is synonym with internet addiction (IA), or also known pathological internet disorder (PIU) in medical terms (Tong et al., 2019). Internet addiction disorder has been coined by a psychologist, Young (1999) and defined as an excessive use of internet. Studies in the medical sciences have been debating it as one of the psychological disorders. It was reported that the online excessive behaviour includes being too long on the social media, playing online games, online pornography and online gambling. In recent event in New Zealand, a terrorist who murdered 52 Muslim worshippers in two mosques and recorded the mass killing live resembling online game PUBG. Even the Negeri Sembilan Mufti urged upon the banning of playing the online game PUBG because of its possible negative effects.
DIGITAL ADDICTION INFLUENCING FACTORS
There are many factors associated with these digital addictions. Digital addictions were found to be influenced greatly by personal factors and risks factors rather than social factors and protective factors (Fumero et al, 2018). Soh et al. (2018) highlighted that internet addictions are influenced by the personal traits such as gender and backgrounds. They also reported that the peers and parents’ influences were also reported to have an impact towards digital
addictions either negatively or positively.
RELIGIOSITY INFLUENCE AND DIGITAL ADDICTION
All religions in the world teach worshippers to perform good deeds and avoid all types of activities that could harm themselves (Mohd Dali et al., 2019). Religiosity factors have been proven to have an effect towards purchasing halal products (Ahmad et al., 2015; Hamid et al., 2108). Nevertheless, in so far, there is no study shows if religiosity has a protective factor towards curbing digital addiction among adolescents. Hence this study will also explore if religiosity factor has an influence in curbing digital addiction.
DIGITAL ADDICTION SYMPTOMS
Those who suffer from digital addiction will tend to isolate themselves from any social activities. They cannot be far away from their electronic gadgets and continuously being online. It is hard for them to disconnect themselves from the internet as their minds have been too focusing on the online activities like playing online games or surfing social media. The inability to stop from being online or using smartphones for such a long time, causes them neglecting other important personal activities such as taking meals or having personal hygiene. Worst of all, working adults addicts may show bad performance in their job which eventually put their career at risks. The intense use of social networking sites can be related to addictive symptoms and is accompanied by psychosocial distress and it might be considered as another form of addictive online behaviour (Muller et al., 2016). It is very important to recognize these symptoms because faster these are identified, the much earlier the addiction can be treated.
DIGITAL ADDICTION IMPACTS
It was reported that digital addicts will suffer from physical and mental health which leads to stress and depressions. Among those who conducted studies on the impact of internet addiction in Malaysia include Masud et al. (2016), Yeap et al. (2016) and Selavagan et al. (2017). Cash et al. (2012) claimed that Internet addiction disorder ruins lives by causing neurological complications, psychological disturbances, and social problems. Othman and Lee (2017) found that internet addiction cause depression and anxiety. We believe that if the adolescents who are at risks of becoming digital addicts are aware on the negative impact of this compulsive behaviour, it is easier for them to pull themselves
out of this negativity.
DIGITAL ADDICTIONS STUDIES IN MALAYSIA
For the past five years (2015-2019), our preliminary research found 25 recent studies on digital addictions in Malaysia. Based on Google scholar search, it was found that 80% of the studies have targeted college/university students as their subjects and such studies were conducted by almost 90% of the studies were empirical which adapted quantitative methods, and the rest used qualitative approach adapting interviews and focus group studies. The internet addiction in Malaysia can be categorised into other subtypes research such as types of respondents which can be divided into school children (Soh et al., 2018; Kumar and Hamzah, 2018), university students (Yeap et al., 2016; Swe et al., 2016; Othman et al.,2017) and working adults (Ainin et al., 2017).
Other types of research were internet addiction influencing factors (Ainin et al., 2019; Soh etal., 2018; Ching et al., 2015; Tan , 2018; Karimi et al., 2016; Saifin et al., 2016;
Ching et al., 2017; Saidin et al., 2017), impacts of internet addiction (Masud et al., 2016;
Selvagan et al., 2017; Yeap et al., 2016), testing reliability and validity of addiction instruments (Ching et al., 2015), as well as applying different types of internet addiction instruments (Haques et al.,
2016; Ching et al., 2017; Chong et al., 2019).
Apart from studies on internet addiction in general such as studies conducted by Teong et al., (2016) and Lu and Yeo (2015), the study of digital addiction also varies including smart phone addiction (Hashim, et al., 2016; Selvagan et al., 2017; AM et al., 2018), youtube addiction (Moghavvin et al., 2017) and facebook addiction (Moghavvein et al., 2017; Karimi et al., 2016).
Nevertheless, those studies are still lacking the ground on how to overcome digital addiction. This compulsive behaviour must be handled thoroughly and properly to ensure that adolescents have better quality of lives. This is in line with the government concern that internet addiction has become societal problem therefore must have an integrated approach on how to curb, correct, and prevent them.
DIGITAL PREVENTION STRATEGIES
Vondrackova et al. (2016) in their studies has theoretically analysed that the digital prevention strategies need to be designed and target on not only children and adolescents at risk of Internet addiction but also parents, teachers, peers, and others who are part of the formative environment of children and adolescents at risk of Internet addiction. These interventions should cover all three levels of prevention:
universal, selective, and indicated, and should address risk factors on the family, peer, school, community, and environmental levels that contribute to the onset and development of Internet addiction. Following this gap, this study will develop a comprehensive preventive strategies framework which consists of risks factors, impacts and possible solutions which could help the authority curbing such a compulsive online behaviour of adolescents.
METHODOLOGY
This study plans to adapt sequential qualitative approach adapted from Creswell (2018). The research will start with focused group interviews where groups of internet addicts will be interviewed using a semi-structured technique to get their feedback on the prevalence, factors and causes. The semi structured interviews will measure characteristics and behaviours associated with compulsive use of the Internet that include compulsivity, escapism, and dependency. Questions also assess problems related to personal, occupational, and social functioning stemming from Internet use.
The subsequent focus groups interviews will be conducted for technical experts using open ended questions with regards to their opinions on possible intervention associated with digital addiction. The experts consisting medical officers, psychologists, counsellors, educators as well as cyber technologists will be gathered in the focus groups to get their knowledge, experiences, and opinions with regards to the prevention strategies for all the identified factors and causes.
Data from the focused group interviews will be transcribed and analysed. The
experts as the respondents, to validate the proposed prevention framework. The data from the focus group interview will be analysed to improve the proposed framework.
Figure 1: E-Addict Conceptual Framework
DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
While digital gadgets and online applications give huge benefits to humans, the excessive use of digital technology also harms the human being especially to the adolescents. They are the future generation that will shape the world. Imbalance in the use of digital gadgets will cause shortcomings in oneself, family, society, and the country. We want to have healthy youngsters physically, mentally, and spiritually who could utilise the digital technology to develop our nation. Thus, every part of the society has the responsibility to help curb and prevent ones from becoming a digital addict. This research is expected to develop an integrated e-addiction prevention framework from socio-technical perspective which can be used as a blueprint for policy makers to curb, correct and prevent internet addiction among netizens in Malaysia.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
This research project is funded under Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS) with research code: (Ref: FRGS/1/2019/SS06/USIM/03/1) by Ministry of Higher Education Malaysia.
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