Internet Addiction, Working Memory, and their association with Psychosocial Functioning of Adolescents during COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

In the context of social restrictions during COVID-19, the capacities for physical and psychological adjustments of vulnerable adolescent population seem to be at risk. The COVID19 pandemic and the lockdown measures have significantly disrupted normal activities globally. The adolescents seem to be particularly vulnerable to the ramifications of the pandemic as their physical and psychological capacities are still developing. The study aimed to understand the frequency of internet use, visuospatial working memory, and their association with multiple domains of psychosocial functioning including attention, internalizing, and externalizing problems. After obtaining written informed consent for translation from the authors, committee approach was utilized to translate Compulsive internet use scale (CIUS) and Pediatric Symptom Checklist-Youth self-report (PSC-Y) from English to Urdu language. In this cross-sectional study, two self-report questionnaires (CIUS and PSC-Y) and one non-verbal test (Corsi BlockTapping Task) were used for online data collection from a sample of 100 adolescents (11-19year-old) across Pakistan. As most of the variables of the study were categorical, chi-square tests were conducted in order to ascertain the relationship among the variables. The chi-square tests have reported a significant association of working memory, χ² (1, N = 100) = 11.253, p = .001; internet addiction, χ² (1, N = 100) = 16.327, p = .000; adolescent’s COVID-19 status, χ² (1, N = 100) = 14.322, p = .000; relationship with COVID-19 positive significant other, χ² (4, N = 100) = 13.456, p = .009; distant learning, χ² (1, N = 100) = 11.253, p = .001; time spent on internet, χ² (3, N = 100) = 32.005, p = .000; and mother’s occupation, χ² (2, N = 100) = 6.594, p = .037; with psychosocial functioning. In addition, the findings have indicated that there seems to be a significant association of working memory, χ² (1, N = 100) = 10.184, p = .001; internet addiction, χ² (1, N = 100) = 17.379, p = .000; adolescent’s COVID-19 status, χ² (1, N = 100) = vi

12.862, p = .000; relationship with COVID-19 positive significant other, χ² (4, N = 100) = 14.360, p = .006; gender, χ² (1, N = 100) = 7.981, p = .005; distant learning, χ² (1, N = 100) = 4.511, p = .034; time spent on internet, χ² (3, N = 100) = 35.648, p = .000; internet content, χ² (2, N = 100) = 6.614, p = .037; and mother’s occupation, χ² (2, N = 100) = 11.166, p = .004, with attention problems. The findings have further indicated that there seems to be a significant association of gender, χ² (1, N = 100) = 7.429, p = .006; time spent on education, χ² (4, N = 100) = 12.164, p = .016; internet content, χ² (2, N = 100) = 9.382, p = .009; and father’s occupation χ² (3, N = 100) = 13.962, p = .003, with externalizing problems. The findings have also indicated that there seems to be a significant association of gender, χ² (1, N = 100) = 4.735, p = .030; and family income, χ² (2, N = 100) = 11.591, p = .003; with internalizing problems. The significant variables were then used for the binary logistic regression in order to determine the direction and strength of the association among predictor and outcome variables. The findings of binary logistic regression have indicated that internet addiction seems to be the strongest predictor as a unit change in internet addiction leads to a 4.327-unit decline in psychosocial functioning. To be specific, spending 5-6 hours on internet likely leads to a 4.320-unit decline in psychosocial functioning. COVID-19 exposure also emerged as a strong predictor as a unit change in positive but recovered COVID-19 status of adolescents contributed to a 3.652-unit decline in psychosocial functioning. Both working memory and internet addiction significantly predict psychosocial functioning of adolescents. In addition, COVID-19 also seems to significantly affect psychosocial functioning. It is likely that COVID-19 pandemic might lead to further worsening of psychosocial functioning of adolescents over time.