Internet communication and social anxiety among different social groups of adolescents

3784

Abstract

The article presents the results of a study of social anxiety and social anhedonia symptoms in adolescents from different social groups, depending on channels of communication with other people they prefer — face-to-face contact, social networking, smartphones, Skype and various sites on the Internet. The study involved 110 people from two Moscow colleges and orphanage. In this study we have used complex of four methods, one of which — “Questionnaire of the channels of social communication” — used for the first time. Based on these results it is concluded that the most common ways of communication in mod-ern adolescents — face-to-face contact and social networks, which are used by them about equally often, however, the majority of adolescents prefer face-to¬face contact to all other channels of communication. Adolescents who prefer face-to-face contact to all other ways of communications, are more prosperous in terms of the two questionnaires of social anxiety (scale of social avoidance and distress — SADS; Watson, Friend, 1969; brief scale of fear of social evaluation — BENE; Leary, 1983) and the scale of the social anhedonia (RSAS; Eckblad et al, 1982) and ones who prefer to communicate in social networks have higher rates in all three questionnaires. It is suggested that the relationship between social anxiety and the frequency of use of social networking is not direct, but mediated by avoiding face-to-face contact. The mechanism of anxiety response leads to amplification of avoidance of face-to-face contact in everyday social situations and further strengthen of social anxiety. This article was prepared with the financial support of the Russian Science Foundation (grant No. 14–18–03461).

General Information

Keywords: Internet communication, social networks, face-to-face contact, social anxiety, social anhedonia, social cognition, senior adolescents

Journal rubric: Empirical Researches

Article type: scientific article

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17759/cpp.2015230407

For citation: Kholmogorova A.B., Avakyan T.V., Klimenkova E.N., Malyukova D.A. Internet communication and social anxiety among different social groups of adolescents. Konsul'tativnaya psikhologiya i psikhoterapiya = Counseling Psychology and Psychotherapy, 2015. Vol. 23, no. 4, pp. 102–129. DOI: 10.17759/cpp.2015230407. (In Russ., аbstr. in Engl.)

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Information About the Authors

Alla B. Kholmogorova, Doctor of Psychology, Professor, Dean of the Faculty of Counseling and Clinical Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology & Education, Leading Researcher, Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry (A Branch of the National Medical Research Centre for Psychiatry and Narcology), Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5194-0199, e-mail: kholmogorova@yandex.ru

Tamara V. Avakyan, PhD in Psychology, Associate Professor at the Chair of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Moscow State University of Psychology & Education, Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0237-866X, e-mail: avakyantv@mgppu.ru

Elizaveta N. Klimenkova, PhD in Psychology, Senior Lecturer, Department of Clinical and Counseling Psychology, Moscow State University of Psychology & Education, State professional educational establishment Complex «South-West»,Psychologist, school psychologist, the structural subdivision "Sevastopol", Moscow, Russia, ORCID: https://orcid.org/0009-0008-5188-1828, e-mail: klimenkovaliza@gmail.com

D. A. Malyukova, Post-graduate Student, Faculty of Consultative and Clinical Psychology, Moscow City Psychological Pedagogical University, Moscow, Russia, e-mail: DM514@yandex.ru

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