Unregulated Internet Usage: Addiction, Habit, or Deficient Self-Regulation?

Recent reports of problematic forms of Internet usage bring new currency to the problem of "media addictions" that have long been the subject of both popular and scholarly writings. The research in this article reconsidered such behavior as deficient self-regulation within the framework of A. Bandura's (1991) theory of self-regulation. In this framework, behavior patterns that have been called media addictions lie at one extreme of a continuum of unregulated media behavior that extends from normally impulsive media consumption patterns to extremely problematic behavior that might properly be termed pathological. These unregulated media behaviors are the product of deficient self-regulatory processes through which media consumers monitor, judge, and adjust their own behavior, processes that may be found in all media consumers. The impact of deficient self-regulation on media behavior was examined in a sample of 465 college students. A measure of deficient self-regulation drawn from the diagnostic criteria used in past studies of pathological Internet usage was significantly and positively correlated to Internet use across the entire range of consumption, including among normal users who showed relatively few of the "symptoms." A path analysis demonstrated that depression and media habits formed to alleviate depressed moods undermined self-regulation and led to increased Internet usage.