Abstract

A questionnaire was put on the WWW to examine Internet behaviour and addiction aspects. 450 valid responses were analysed. The most part of the responses came from Switzerland. The answers to the general questions (gender: 16% female, 84% male, age: around 30 years, education: 55% have at least colleague degree) are similar to other surveys.

Some of the results are: Buying products cheaper over the Internet is not a big concern of the questionnaire respondents. The Internet seems extremely attractive to the questionnaire participants. Only ten percent decreased their Internet usage last year. More than fifty percent answered that Internet from time to time, often or always replaces watching TV.

10% of the respondents considered themselves as addicted to or dependent on the Internet. Some of the questions were based on the addiction criteria from the Internet addiction researchers and on common symptoms of addiction. The results show a significant difference in the answers from addicted versus non-addicted users. This leads to the conclusion that addictive behaviour can exist in Internet usage. On the other hand, the answers based on the common symptoms of addiction questions are not so strong in the addicted group that one can speak of an addiction, in which for example continued, persistent use of the Internet appears in spite of negative consequences. Interestingly, people consider themselves as addicted or dependent to the Internet independent of gender, age or living situation.

For certain tests there were too few questionnaire data, e.g. whether there is a significant difference between occupation or education and addiction/non-addiction.

This data is only a snapshot of the 450 answered questionnaires, there is no claim that the results of this study is representative of the general Internet population.