Social support and Internet addiction among mainland Chinese teenagers and young adults: A meta-analysis

Although many studies show that social support and Internet addiction are negatively correlated, others show a positive correlation. To address this controversy, we investigate the relation between social support and Internet addiction in mainland China with a meta-analysis of 76 articles comprising 47,899 teenagers and young adults. The results show a medium-sized negative correlation between social support and Internet addiction. Furthermore, this medium-sized link differed across measures of Internet addiction, gender, and geography. This negative correlation was smaller when measuring Internet addiction with the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) than when using other measures. In samples with more males, the negative correlation between social support and Internet addiction was larger. The size of the negative correlation coefficient was largest in Eastern China, smaller in Central China, and smallest in Western China.