This article explains the effects of variables such as parental monitoring, leisure boredom, and leisure activity on the adolescent that lead to internet addiction. The internet has become a huge part of the adolescent lifestyle opening up the cyber world for them. The excessive over use of the internet is known as internet addiction and anyone can become an internet addict. The over use of the internet can hinder many things in a person’s life such as cutting oneself off from the outside world, performing badly at tasks, or having bad time management problems. Many adolescent addicts have been known to be susceptible to substance use, and be involved in many risky online activities such as the following; meeting someone in person that they have never seen before, or even going as fare as becoming involved in cybering, also known as cybersex. There are many factors that can either help feed an internet addiction or help to keep adolescence from having an internet addiction. Parental monitoring believes that by good parental monitoring parents can actually alter an adolescent’s behavior, thoughts, and feelings toward leisure time thus keeping them from having an internet addiction. The study was measured with a survey by asking adolescence questions like the following with a rating on a scale of 1-7: do your parents know how you spend your pocket money, how you spend your leisure time, where you were last night. The results showed that the adolescence were strictly monitored by their parents which shows to have a negative effect on an adolescent being an Internet Addict. Although the study shows deterrence of internet addiction in adolescence addiction analyses indicated parental monitoring has a negative impact on participation in social activities, internet activity and leisure boredom it showed a positive participation in family activities. Leisure boredom is referred to as a negative state of mind that reflects inner conflict between expected and perceived experiences. This is believed to have a positive effect on an internet addiction in adolescence. In the study questions were asked to adolescence were rated on a 7-point scale. Questions like the following were asked: For me, leisure time just drags on and on, Leisure time is boring, in my leisure time, I usually don’t like what I’m doing, but I don’t know what else to do. The results showed that leisure boredom was a positive effect for internet addiction. Showing that adolescent’s experiences with leisure boredom deemed them to be more likely to be an internet addict. Leisure activities participation was calculated by asking adolescents how much time per week they spent on average with various activities such as: family activities, outdoor activities, school activities, social activities, and internet activities. The results showed that almost a quarter of adolescent’s time, about 40.26 hours a week, was spent on leisure activities. The relationship between family activities and internet activities showed only a .05 difference. This shows that leisure activities participation has a negative effect on adolescent internet addiction. In conclusion the overall study showed that out of 1289 questionnaires only 23.4% of adolescence surveyed had addictions to the internet. The study tells us that parental monitoring and leisure activity involvement has a negative effect on internet addiction lowering the chances with leisure boredom having a positive effect making the chances greater. Variables such as age and gender showed not to be main factors toward internet addiction but, parental monitoring, thoughts of boredom in leisure time, and leisure time participations were more critical. The study shows that parental monitoring of participation in leisure time seems to be a must to help prevent internet addiction. Internet addiction is very preventable and I was actually shocked that the percentage of the number of adolescent with internet addiction was so low. With the high rise of technology in this decade it has kind of opened the door wide open for many different addictions. It was also very good to learn that parents were stepping up and doing a good job by being strict with their kids. By parents keeping kids involved in extracurricular and family activities it seems to keep the kids away from the computer and helps them to find their niche in life and something they can actually enjoy which leads to less internet addiction.

Chien-Hsin Lin, Shong-Lin Lin, and Chin-Pi Wu. “THE EFFECTS OF PARENTAL MONITORING AND LEISURE BOREDOM ON ADOLESCENTS' INTERNET ADDICTION.” Adolescence. FindArticles.com. 17 Apr, 2012. Web. 25 Mar 2012.