
Internet use reduces study skills in university students - laurex
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/01/200117085321.htm
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kstenerud
Clickbait title. If you look inside, they are correlating internet addiction
to lack of motivation to study.

This would be expected of any addiction, and so they had to jazz up the title.

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gtirloni
Addiction is one extreme of the usage pattern. The effects of increased
internet usage could be seen before reaching that stage.

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elfexec
> The effects of increased internet usage could be seen before reaching that
> stage.

But that's true of any addiction - alcohol, drug, gambling, etc. You can see
the effects before it reaches the extreme stage.

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m11a
I don't know what you're getting at here. These are all bad addictions that
would result in "reduced study skills" I'd imagine. Similar for other
addictions, like gaming or television.

But I'm not sure an addiction to reading, or an addiction to painting, would
necessarily have the same negative effect. Sure, an obsessive addiction where
you can't do anything else, but that isn't what's discussed here.

I'd hypothesise some addictions have a worse effect on study skills than
others.

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StavrosK
"Addiction" is defined as a behavior that impairs other aspects of your life
to a large degree, so yes, even a reading addiction would have these effects
by definition.

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thaumasiotes
The definition of "addiction" varies by field. In economics, "addiction" is
the phenomenon of a behavior having increasing returns on investment. (Which
means that if you do some, you'll want to do more.)

This has the disadvantage that it is near-totally unrelated to what most
people think of as "addiction". But it has the advantage that it is a coherent
concept, which isn't true of most offered definitions.

In the vernacular, "addiction" just means that you disapprove of someone's
behavior.

In medicine outside psychiatry, "addiction" refers to the phenomenon of
physical withdrawal symptoms in the absence of something. For no particularly
good reason, you are not considered to be addicted to oxygen. But that's not
part of the definition, it's an implied codicil.

Psychiatry defines a single "addictive disorder", which is compulsive
gambling. Nothing else is considered addictive. This seems to be a response to
the fact that no one has ever provided a workable definition of addiction.
(See e.g. [https://www.porticonetwork.ca/web/fundamentals-addiction-
too...](https://www.porticonetwork.ca/web/fundamentals-addiction-
toolkit/introduction/dsm-critieria) : "The term addiction is no longer used to
describe substance use disorders. It was felt that the term was so loaded with
associations that it lacked precision.") This comic ( [http://www.smbc-
comics.com/comic/2014-03-21](http://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/2014-03-21) )
provides an amusing illustration of the issues. But for a less irreverent joke
at psychiatry's expense, this formal paper (
[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5328289/](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5328289/)
) spends some time making fun of the fact that compulsive gambling is the
unique "addictive disorder" while compulsive stealing, which is mostly
identical except in the specific behavior expressed, is an "impulse control
disorder".

Here's how the different systems classify caffeine:

Vernacular: addictive if you're a Mormon; not otherwise.

Economics: not addictive; no increasing returns.

Medicine: addictive. (Withdrawal causes severe headaches.)

Psychiatry: not a substance use disorder. (Consumption of caffeine may be
compulsive, but it is not a "disorder", itself not a well-defined term.)

I suggest to you that the definition you provided, "a behavior that impairs
other aspects of your life to a large degree", comes from psychiatry, but is
actually part of the definition of a "disorder", not an "addiction".

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StavrosK
Thanks, you've taught me something.

That aside, I'd like to congratulate you on how non-confrontational your
comment was, making it easier for me to reply that you've taught me something.
I will try to emulate that in my comments in the future.

~~~
thaumasiotes
It only feels fair to note for the record that the closing line of my comment
was edited in. :/ (Along with the reference to the paper on "expanding the
definition of 'addiction'".)

~~~
StavrosK
My whole life is a lie

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swsieber
All they have is correlation and they paint a narrative of "causes", ugh.

> In addition to the links between levels of internet addiction and poor study
> motivation and ability, internet addiction was found to be associated with
> increased loneliness. The results indicated that loneliness, in turn, made
> studying harder for the students.

While they don't use the phrase "causes", the in turn definitely suggests that
they think internet addiction causes loneliness. Since we're apparently free
to interpret correlation as causation, here's my interpretation:

Loneliness makes studying harder and is major contributing factor in internet
addiction.

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nogabebop23
Related Question - Do students still use study groups, where they physically
get together in the same place, split up material and then share, quiz and
mentor?

Even in the 90's and 00's I saw a decline in technical areas of study, but
there was a time when this was the standard (and arguably only) way to get
through your program (think Law or Business school in the 70's - 80's). There
was just too much material to distill down for a single person. I wonder if
this form of knowledge acquisition is largely dead...

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uchiga
Many students still do today for study/social groups. Just walk through any
campus center or library. Some more complex courses really benefit from
working as a team to reduce the individual load.

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kerkeslager
The summary section says: "Research has shown that students who use digital
technology excessively are less motivated to engage with their studies, and
are more anxious about tests. This effect was made worse by the increased
feelings of loneliness that use of digital technology produced."

That's a very different conclusion from "Internet use reduces study skills in
university students"

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Merrill
>"These results suggest that students with high levels of internet addiction
may be particularly at risk from lower motivations to study, and, hence, lower
actual academic performance."

Too bad that they didn't collect grades and test results and measure actual
academic performance.

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thepete2
Hardly an established causality, but more of a reasonable assumption.

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sdenton4
Literacy causes degraded memorization skills! The town crier will tell you all
about it when the sun dial points at XI.

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aneutron
That is some absolute bullshit. Internet use was the single most important
reason I got to learn what I did today.

Let me put it this way: Third world country, absolutely useless professors who
are in the job because it simply pays (even random marks), and no actual
technical skills to be learned.

If it wasn't for using the internet, I probably wouldn't have succeeded in
university nor found a job.

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jariel
"That is some absolute bullshit. "

I think you've have failed to grasp the issue.

Nobody doubts the internet as a transformational vehicle for information
propagation.

The study attempts to show that constant internet use can demotivate people in
study.

I believe it's true, because constant internet use makes it hard to
concentrate for long periods: I find it much harder to simply 'read a book'
these days, but that's just me.

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tus88
Doubt true for compsci majors...

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m11a
It probably depends how you use the internet. The study says the main use of
the internet was social networking (40%). If a compsci major is using the
internet in the same way as typical students I don't doubt the results hold
true in proportion. Study also notes that it resulted in increased loneliness,
which would hold true as well.

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thaumasiotes
"Computer nerds get even lonelier when they spend all their time on the
internet" is a plausible finding, but most people probably aren't going to
think about social networking first when they hear it.

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dragonis41
But we don't have the statistics for each study, I'm in IT and it's
inconceivable to stop using internet for learn it make research

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dimitar
I wonder what part of it is social media. I think it is particularly
distracting in an age where FOMO is very real.

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asdff
this dates back to aim at least

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polskibus
Internet ise as a proxy for thinking that lessens the ability for deep work.
Nice to see it confirmed by research.

