Heavy internet use may induce aggressive behavior in teens

New York, February 25:A new research has found that Children who suffer from internet addiction are more likely to suffer from aggression, a form of behavior that is angry and destructive and intended to harm a person either physically or mentally.

The connection between excessive internet use in children and health problems like obesity, headaches and general ill health due to lack of physical activity is already established.

Now, a new Taiwanese study goes a step further, linking aggression in teens to an uncontrollable use of internet.

According to a team of researchers at Kaohsiung Medical University in Taiwan, children, who play violent video games and visit sexually or violence-oriented websites, often behave badly as such activities provoke them to observe, experience and try aggressive and violent behaviors.

To reach their findings, the researchers’ team lead by Chih-Hung Ko, M.D., from Kaohsiung Medical University, studied 9,405 Taiwanese teenagers. The boffins asked all the study participants to fill in questionnaires, asking about their internet activity and behaviors.

Based on the questioners about their online and offline behavior, Ko and colleagues labeled 25 percent of the male students and 13 percent of females as Internet addicts.

In their study, the researchers observed that heavy Internet users were more likely to confess they have hit, hurt, or threatened others in the past year.

More precisely, 13 percent of all the female students and 32 percent of the males reported aggressive behavior, including threatening or hurting others, in the past year, compared with 37 percent of those addicted to the Internet.

The researchers wrote in the study that Internet activities like chatting online, playing video games and visiting adult pornography websites could provoke teenagers to “observe, experience and try aggressive behaviors resulting in positive outcome, (such as) identification in a group, being a hero or winning in games.”

Ko said his findings suggest that parents should pay close attention to their children's internet use, and talk to them about their general attitudes toward violence.

The latest findings appear online in the Journal of Adolescent Health.