Digital Media and Psychological Well-being among Youth
Ni Putu Adelia Kesumaningsari
1
, Cindy Claudia Soen
1
, Made Arisudana
1
, Zeng Xiangjun
2
, Jia
Zhenguo
3
1
Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Surabaya
2
Department of Psychology and Social Sciences, Zhejiang University, China
3
Henan Institute of Technology and Science, China
Keywords: Digital media, compulsive internet use, psychological well-being
Abstract: Most of the previous research has been noting that daily screen time has several negative consequences
among youth for instance foster loneliness and displace other well-being activities, such as sports or social
activities. Meanwhile, media use also gives positive influences such as fulfil the needs for autonomy,
competence, and relatedness or relieving stress and daily hassles. Like the flip of a coin, media may serves
both positive and negative impacts into psychological health. Recent research has documented a rapid
increase in the use of new technologies such as touchscreen or tablets on mental health issues, however little
of the research shown the empirical evidence about its relation to the foremost psychological well-being
(PWB) concept. Using data from 147 youth, we analyse the association between digital media use and PWB
in a sample of 16 to 24-year-old Indonesian. The digital media use was examined from the screen activities
duration and the compulsiveness of internet use. Our analysis shows that screen-time duration and
compulsive internet use does not significantly associate with low lever of PWB, respectively. However, the
current research found the associations between compulsive internet use and self-acceptance, one of the
PWB dimension. Additionally, the finding suggests the presence of gender differences concerning the extent
of media use. To sum up, the current findings can be explained as the variation of the possible effect of
media on psychological risk in Indonesian Youth.
1 INTRODUCTION
In the past decade, the Internet has proliferated
vigorously as a communication medium in any age
group. A global increase in internet users around the
globe (We Are Social, 2018). Moreover, owning
screen technologies such as smartphone or tablet are
getting more accessible nowadays. Indonesia listed
as the top 3 countries with the most significant
smartphone sales in the Asia-Pacific region.
(Indonesia Investment, 2016). The high numbers of
huge sales give an overview that digital media has
been an integral part of social life, moreover, since
the internet is getting more accessible. Youth (age
18-24) was reported as the most significant
population engaged with social media, providing
compelling evidence that the group of late
adolescents and early adulthood are the largest
consumers of digital media (We Are Social, 2018).
Generally speaking, media have come to play an
essential role in how the young generation acquire
information, connect with friends and family, and
enjoy entertainment (Sun and Subrahanyam, 2017).
In Indonesia, the use of internet in young generation
was triggered by three principal reasons, i.e.
information searching (80.2 per cent), seeking
friendship (78.6 per cent), and entertainment or
recreation (73.3 per cent). Only around one quarter
(25.6 per cent) access the Internet for escapism of
self, while 17.6 per cent for educational reason, and
just 12.6 per cent for self-protection (Kemkominfo,
2015).
The research field of the psychological effects of
media in young generation is growing importance
and was more confounded more by the concern of
unintended effects instead of its positive side
(Reinecke and Oliver, 2017). It has been said that
media bridges the fulfilment of developmental tasks
among adolescents, for instance fulfilling the needs
of autonomy, competence, relatedness (Tamborini,
et al., 2011). Moroever, internet use would be
beneficial for enhancing social relation as it help to
554
Kesumaningsari, N., Soen, C., Arisudana, M., Xiangjun, Z. and Zhenguo, J.
Digital Media and Psychological Well-being among Youth.
DOI: 10.5220/0008592005540563
In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Psychology in Health, Educational, Social, and Organizational Settings (ICP-HESOS 2018) - Improving Mental Health and Harmony in
Global Community, pages 554-563
ISBN: 978-989-758-435-0
Copyright
c
 2020 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

create more social connections with new friends,
maintain and expand social resources, and also gain
social support (Trepte, Dienlin and Reinecke, 2015).
Apart from the positive effects, daily internet use
also has several negative consequences. Research in
adolescents suggested that the daily internet and
computer use foster loneliness and displaces other
well-being activities, such as sports or social
activities (Vandelanotte, et al., 2009). Another
research about daily internet use in 7888 Dutch
adolescence in 2009 suggested that use of the
internet was indirectly related to loneliness, low self-
esteem, and depressive moods (Van der Aa, et al.,
2009). Furthermore, a more recent study indicating
that as the internet use increases it leads to low level
of self-esteem and happiness, however increasing
the possibility of loneliness among adolescence
(Bozoglan, Demirer and Sahin, 2013; Muusses, et
al., 2014). The evidence available seems to suggest
that the use of internet contributes to lowering the
well-being among young generation.
The cause of adverse effects on internet use may
also depend on the activity that adolescence spent,
i.e. watching movies through internet, playing video
games, using social media, searching for
information, or another entertainment activity. The
different purposes of Internet usage would result in a
different condition of psychological well-being
(Zhu, et al., 2005). For example, longitudinal
research about online communication channel
suggesting that virtual communication was related to
the poor mental health condition in adolescences.
The activities which positively associated with poor
mental health was the use of instant messenger apps
since it contributes to depression and loneliness in
adolescences after six months intensive using (van
den Eijnden, et al., 2008). Another research also
finds that private information published on media
social like Twitter or Facebook seemingly reach
unexpected audiences, causing conflicts with family,
friends, and employers (Vitak, 2012).
In many case, the use of internet is hard to
control. The users become so involved with certain
applications or content of the internet that they are
no longer able to control their online activity. As a
consequence, the inability to control the engagement
on internet has turned into compulsive internet use
symptom (Chou and Hsiao, 2000), which in another
literature also referred to internet addiction (Young,
1998). Accordingly, a compulsive internet users will
exhibit the compulsivity of behaviour characterized
by (a) experiencing unpleasant emotions when
Internet use is impossible, (b) fall to cut down the
internet use despite having desire to do so, (c) using
internet to escape from negative feelings, (d) the
intention to use the internet dominates one’s
cognitions and behaviours, and (e) resulting conflict
with others or self-conflict due to the internet use
(Meerkerk, et al., 2008).
The compulsive internet use becomes so
vulnerable for the young generation since screen-
based media occupy a considerable portion of young
peoples’ discretionary leisure time. Van der Aa, et
al. (2009) suggested that compulsive internet use
mediated the effects of daily internet use and
adolescence well-being. Therefore, the effects of the
internet on well-being could be examined from two
things. First is by daily internet use (time devoted to
internet screen-based activity) and secondly is the
compulsivity of internet usage.
From the research currently available, it seems
fair to suggest the engagement on internet screen-
based activities contributes to young generation
personal well-being. The widespread availability,
acceptance, and explosive growth of internet
activities by youth make it essential to examine this
topic. However, past research has used inconsistent
measures of psychological well-being. Most of the
research available is measuring well-being in term of
subjective well-being such as happiness, loneliness,
self-esteem, depression, and stress (Bozoglan,
Demirer and Sahin, 2013; Muusses, et al., 2014).
Therefore, very few aspects of psychological well-
being have been assessed. As a consequence, it is
hard to compare the equivalence of findings of the
effects of the internet to psychological well-being
since the different measurement means a different
explanation of research findings of the psychological
well-being among youth which affected by the
internet.
Finally, despite its growing importance, the
effect of media use on well-being is still robust.
None of the research available has demonstrated the
empirical evidence of the connection between media
use and psychological well-being and also the
direction of the influence, although it is clear that
digital media use are related to youth well-being
(Reinecke and Oliver, 2017). Hence, the current
research attempts to examine the relation of internet
screen-based activities and psychological well-being
according to Ryff’s Psychological Well-Being
concept.
To sum up, this research is expected to be a
source of reference for the development of
psychological sciences, especially in Cyber
psychology and to enrich the understanding of
internet use with regard to psychological well-being
among youth in Indonesia. The current research
Digital Media and Psychological Well-being among Youth
555

addressed the adolescents aged 16-24 (in this
research we use terminology “youth”) to see the
association between digital media and psychological
well-being. The relationship direction was also
examined.
2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Digital Media Use
Digital media is defined as products and services
that come from many sources such as media and
entertainment (World Economic Forum, 2016). It
consists of a digital platform (e.g., blogs and
applications), digitised (e.g., audio, video, text, and
images) and services (e.g., information,
entertainment, and communication). Various digital
devices can be used to access all of these digital
platforms.
In this research, digital media use is focused to
internet-based screen-activities that are frequently
done by adolescence either weekday or weekend,
which in principle are the activities spent on the
Internet such as : (1) Video or movie streaming (2)
Playing video games, (3) Using social media, (4)
Internet browsing, and (5) Leisure activities like
reading online book or music streaming.
2.2 Compulsive Internet Use
People with excessive Internet use and lack control
of it classified as Internet addiction or also known as
Compulsive Internet Use (Meerkerk, Van Den
Eijnden and Vermulst, 2009). Compulsive Internet
use has been explained by basic criteria such as (a)
one experiences undesirable feeling when Internet
use is not available, (b) one continues Internet use
even there is intention to stop, (c) one uses Internet
to flight from negative emotions, (d) Internet use
monopolizes one’s cognitions and behaviours, (e)
Internet use cause conflict either with others or self-
conflict (Meerkerk, Van Den Eijnden and Vermulst,
2009).
2.3 Psychological Well-Being
Psychological well-being is a psychology concept
that was born from Aristoteles writing which known
as Nichomachean Ethics. In Nichomachean Ethics
Aristoteles reveals that the highest of all human
achievement is “eudaemonia” (Ryff and Singer,
2006). Eudaemonia is one of the paradigms that
focused on functioning individual self to develop
and actualising individual purposes. So that
individual can sense the peace and grateful for life.
Based on eudaemonia, Ryff formed
Psychological well-being concept in 1989 (Ryff and
Singer, 2006). Ryff divide psychological well-being
into 6 dimension which is, (1) purpose in life,
individual felt their lives has meaning, purpose, and
direction, (2) Autonomy, individual viewed
themselves to be living in accord with their personal
beliefs, (3) personal growth, continued development
of self, making use of their personal talents and
potential, (4) environmental mastery, how good their
ability to adapt to life situation, (5) positive
relationships, the depth of relation they had with
others, (6) self-acceptance, the knowledge and
acceptance they had in themselves, including bad
qualities and limitations. Merge, all of this
dimensions symbolised notable contrast to extant
indicators focused on feeling good, happy,
confident, or satisfied with life (Ryff, 2014).
3 METHOD
3.1 Participants
The current research had been addressed to typical
adolescence aged 16-24 who engaged with digital
media daily and has never been diagnosed with any
disorder. The adolescence must be an internet user;
hence the data collection should be done through an
online questionnaire. The internet usage is not
limited to electronic equipment such as a
smartphone, tablet, portable computer, or even a
computer with internet connection. At this time, of
the 147 youth participate in the study, consisted of
87 female (59.2%) and 60 male (40.8%). The
participants had an average age of 19 from age range
16 – 24 years (SD = 1.837).
3.2 Procedure
All of the scales computed into the online software
program, namely Google Forms, based on the
original validated versions. The questionnaires
compiled into one long survey and distributed to the
adolescence on designated age group as an online
link. The description of the study, requirement, and
instruction was created. On the first page of the
survey along with the confirmation button for
adolescence as an agreeing to participate in the
study. By clicking the survey link, adolescence will
be asked to answer the entire question. Preliminary
requirements before granting access to the survey
ICP-HESOS 2018 - International Conference on Psychology in Health, Educational, Social, and Organizational Settings
556

were: (1) who never diagnosed with any disorder,
(2) operate digital media intensively, and (3) agree
to participate in the study.
3.3 Instrumentation
The participants completed a demographic and
history form designed for the study to provide
information about the age, educational background,
province origin, diagnostic information, and general
information about the duration of media use. Three
measurement scales will be used in this research to
examine the aim of the research, Digital Media Use
Survey, Compulsive Internet Use, and Psychological
Well-Being.
Digital Media Use Survey. In particular, the
contain of digital media use survey is adopting the
media survey by Mazurek and Wenstrup (2013)
which ask about the general duration spent on media
based on outside school activities during weekday
and weekend such as ‘‘reading for pleasure,’’
‘‘doing homework/studying,’’ ‘‘spending time with
friends,’’ ‘‘playing sports/other physical activity,’’,
‘‘watching TV,’’ ‘‘playing video or computer
games,’’ and ‘‘using email, Facebook, or texting.’’.
However, researcher does a modification by only
focus to ask the adolescents about their activities on
digital media during both weekday and weekend,
which in principle are the activities spent on the
internet such as (1) Video or movie streaming (2)
Playing video games, (3) Using social media, (4)
Browsing internet, and (5) Leisure activities such as
reading online book or music streaming. A five-
point rating-scale will be used to indicate the
frequency of use (0) I am not doing such activities,
(1) less than 1 hour, (2) 1-2 hours, (3) 2-3 hours, and
(4) more than 3 hours. The five-point-rating-scale
adopted the rating-scale of Lohaus, et al. (2005) in
their media use survey. Consistent with previous
methods (Orsmond and Kuo, 2011; Mazurek and
Menstrup, 2013) an average daily use variable was
created for each activity by multiplying the weekday
response by 5, multiplying the weekend response by
2, and divided the sum by 7.
Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS).
Compulsive Internet use was assessed using the
Compulsive Internet Use Scale (Meerkerk, et al.,
2009). Internet compulsive use scales comprises 14
items and were aimed at adolescents asks about the
frequency of internet use. The answer will be given
on a 5-point scale ranging from 0, never; 1, seldom;
2, sometimes; 3, often; and 4, very often.
Participants answered the scale by responding to
statement like “How often…. (1) Do you find it
difficult to stop using the Internet when you are
online? or (2) Do you continue to use the Internet
despite your intention to stop?. The scale has been
showing good factorial stability across time and
different samples and subsamples. The internal
consistency is also high (α = 0.90), and showing
good validity from the concurrent and criterion
variables (Meerkerk, et al., 2009). In the present
study, the internal consistency was also high and
acceptable (α = 0.87).
Psychological Well-Being Scale. Ryff and Keyes
(1995) constructed the Psychological Well-Being
Scale consists of 6 domains including self-
acceptance, positive relations with others, autonomy,
environmental mastery, the purpose of life, and
personal growth. The Psychological Well-Being
Scale measurement is a self-reported scale presents
on a 6 point Likert scale ranging from strongly
disagree to strongly agree.
An individual have to decide how true each
statement is for them. Higher scores on each
dimension on scale indicate greater well-being,
while the low scores on each dimension indicate low
level of well-being. Sample item on this scale
include “In general, I feel confident and positive
about myself” Or “I often feel lonely because I have
a few close friends with whom to share my
concerns.” However, the current research used the
modified scale of long version psychological well-
being scale by Ryff and Keyes (1995). The
modification scale was done by Rachmayani and
Ramdhani (2014). In this paper, the researcher
decides to use the modified scale by Rachmayani
and Ramdhani (2014) since the items on the
modified scale has adjusted the cultural aspect of
Indonesia and have been translated to the Indonesian
language.
The modified scale consists of 30 items from the
psychological well-being aspects with five likerts
scales ranging from 1, extremely disagree to 5, and
completely agree. Cronbach‘s α coefficients showed
high coefficients for the modified scale (α = 0.914)
with item-total correlation score range from r= 0,215
to r = 0,619, suggested the modified Psychological
Well-Being scale is reliable. In the current study, the
internal consistency was also high and acceptable (α
= 0.89).
Digital Media and Psychological Well-being among Youth
557

4 RESULT
4.1 Sample Characteristics
The current study employed quantitative research
design with a correlational study. As much as 147
youths (60 males, 87 females) participated in this
study, whose ages ranged from 16 to 24. The
relation between the average times devoted to digital
media or internet-based screen activities toward
psychological well-being scores was examined.
Moreover, the relation between compulsive internet
use (CIU) scores toward the psychological well-
being of youth was investigated as well. We
assumed that screen-time would correlate with
psychological well-being. On the same line, we also
expect that CIU correlates with psychological well-
being. Further, we expect a negative correlation,
means that high screen-time among youth will be
related to low psychological well-being; likewise the
high CIU also will be related to low psychological
well-being.
Initially, a descriptive analysis was conducted to
provide information with the level CIU and PWB
among the samples. In regards to CIU, most of the
samples are in the low and moderate level of CIU,
40.1% (N=59) and 52.4% (N=77) respectively. Only
7.5% (N=11) of samples which considered as having
a high level of CIU. Concerning PWB, most of the
sample, as much as 57.1% (N=84) showed a high
level of PWB, whereas the rest of the samples about
42.9% (N=63) was categorised the moderate level of
PWB. None of the samples was categorised to the
low level of PWB.
Besides the descriptive statistic for PWB and
CIU, a general overview of screen-based media use
habits among youth was also examined, which
indicates by the average time devotes on screen-
activities per day. The data suggest the highest time
usage on screen-activity was for social media
(M=2.81, SD=1.097), whereas the lowest was for
gaming (M=1.58, SD=1.291). Some descriptive
information about screen activity participation is
presented in Table 1.
Table 1: The average of screen-activity participation per
day among youth.
M SD
Screen-
Time
Categor
y
Watchin
g
2.23 1.137 1-2 hours
Gamin
g
1.58 1.291 1-2 hours
Browsin
g
2.07 1.066 1-2 hours
Social Media 2.81 1.097 2-3 hours
Another
Entertainment
2.07 1.206 1-2 hours
Notes: N = 147
Further through a bivariate correlational analysis,
it was found a significant positive relationship
between the average screen-time per day with CIU
(r=.276, p<.05). The finding has demonstrated the
current trend of high CIU as the duration of screen-
activities increases. Respectively, the duration of
gaming and using social media platform related to
CIU. The correlation magnitude was positive,
suggesting the more youth spent their time in
gaming or social media activities; they tend to be
more compulsive while using the internet.
In terms of the differences of the total score
between genders, the significant difference was
found between males and females with regard to the
total score of compulsive internet use. The CIU
score was significantly higher in males (M=25.02,
SD=12.33) than females (M=21.17, SD=6.49), t
(145) = 2.458, p < .05. Besides, the difference was
also found regarding the screen activities, indicating
a sex preference screen activities. Male and females
spent screen activities differently, a significant
difference in gaming and social media activities. In
particular, the time devoted in gaming activities
differ between genders t (145) = 4.379, p = .000,
which the mean gaming score for males was 2.11,
means on average males spent 1-2 hours per day in
gaming activities, 95% CI [.491, 1.298] points
higher than the females. Meanwhile, the time
devoted in social media was significantly higher for
females (M=2.99, SD=1.05) than males (M=2.54, SD
= 1.12), t (145) = -2.481, p < .05. According to the
category, females spent 2-3 hours per day on social
media on average. The complete result of the
comparison test among time devoted to screen-
activities based on sex present in Table 2.
Table 2 : Activity participation in youth between males
and females.
Males Females t-
test
M
SD
M
SD
CIU 25.02 12.
33
21.1
7
6.49 2.45
8*
PWB 113.3
7
12.
40
111.
03
12.0
4
1.14
0
Watching 2.20 1.1
5
2.25 1.13 -
.251
Gaming 2.11 1.3
1
1.22 1.15 4.37
9**
Browsing 2.22 1.1
4
1.96 1.01 1.45
8
ICP-HESOS 2018 - International Conference on Psychology in Health, Educational, Social, and Organizational Settings
558

Social Media 2.54 1.1
2
2.99 1.05 -
2.48
1*
Another
Entertainmen
t
1.96 1.3
0
2.15 1.14 -
.949
Notes: N = 147
‘*’ = p < .05, ‘**’= p < .001
4.2 Bivariate Correlations between
Observed Variables
According to statistical analysis, correlation
coefficients for the screen-time and psychological
well-being were r = .81, and r = .16 for the CIU and
psychological well-being (neither was significant).
After that, the relation between screen-time and CIU
toward the sub-dimensions of psychological well-
being were explored, aim to find if there any further
relation regarding the effects of the use of digital
media (indicating by the average score of daily
screen-time) and psychological well-being. None of
the significant correlation was found between
screen-time and each of psychological well-being
sub-dimensions.
Even though we did not find any correlation
between screen-time and psychological well-being,
we find the relation of CIU with the dimension of
psychological well-being. In detail, the correlation
test found that there was a small significant
correlation between CIU and one of psychological
well-being dimension, that is self-acceptance (r = -
0.165, p < 0.05). The magnitude of the correlation
was negative, which indicates that high compulsive
internet use related to low level of self-acceptance
among youth. However, the small correlation
implies that the contribution of CIU might small on
the psychological well-being score, but still it was
meaningful. Besides, the current research did not
find any significant correlation among CIU and
others psychological dimension remained such as
autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth,
positive relations, or purpose in life (p > 0.05). See
Table 3 and 4 for the complete result of the
correlation test among variables.
Table 3: Correlation between screen time and its
component with PWB.
Screen time
Variable
r
P
PWB .081 .332
Autonom
y
.087 .292
Environmental Master
y
.107 .199
Personal Growth .053 .524
Positive Relations .073 .379
Purpose in Life .078 .345
Self acceptance .077 .355
Notes: N = 147
‘*’ = p < .05, ‘**’= p < .001
Table 4: Correlation between compulsive internet use and
its component with PWB.
Compulsive Internet Use
R
P
PWB .158 .057
Autonomy -.010 .908
Environmental Mastery .121 .145
Personal Growth .078 .345
Positive Relations .155 .061
Pur
p
ose in Life .131 .115
Self acceptance .165* .045
Notes: N = 147
‘*’ = p < .05, ‘**’= p < .001
5 DISCUSSION
It is worth mentioning that there is a shortage in the
literature regarding the relationship between digital
media use and internet use with psychological well-
being. The current study attempts to analyse the
association between digital media use and the
compulsivity of internet use to psychological well-
being in a sample of 16 to 24-year-old Indonesian.
The current study examined the relationship of the
independent variable on the dependent variables
measured by doing a separate correlational analysis.
The youth 16-24-year-old Indonesian in the
current sample were reported to spend, on average
approximately almost 2 hours on each internet
screen-based activities such as watching/video
streaming, playing video games, internet browsing,
playing social media, or another entertainment
activities (listening to the streaming music, reading
e-book). Therefore, the youth might spend almost 10
hours per day on varied internet screen-based
activities to date.
Research also suggests that the daily amount of
internet use relates to the compulsivity of internet
use. In particular, people tend to be more
compulsive if they spent much time on the screen
using the internet (Van der Aa, et al., 2009).
Correspondingly, the time spent on the internet
based screen activities in the present study were
consistently presenting to have a linear relationship
with compulsive internet use, supporting the
findings in many research that the level of
compulsive internet use will increases as the
preoccupation time on internet increase. The score
Digital Media and Psychological Well-being among Youth
559

of CIU was different between male and female 16-
24 years old Indonesian. Male youth were reported
to display more compulsivity than female.
According to many research, CIU was reported to be
more prevalent among males than females both in
Eastern or Western countries (Ciarrochi, et al.,
2016).
Besides, the activities which correlate
significantly with the compulsive internet use in the
present study was gaming and playing social media.
A longitudinal study across four years in compulsive
internet use by Ciarrochi, et al. (2016) has reported
that traditionally males were more likely than
females to engage in gaming, whereas females were
more likely to engage in internet communication
activities. In similar lines, the current study also
suggested the presence of typical sex screen-
activities, indeed was found that gaming is the
screen-activities that spent more by male samples,
whereas using social media was indicated as the
activity spent most by females’ samples, indicating
the presence of typical sex screen-activities. Another
interesting finding, the CIU shows significant
correlation with gaming for males and social media
for females. The result indicates that CIU for males
related with the use of video games, whereas for
females associated with the social media
engagement.
With regard to psychological well-being among
youth, the present study showed neither significant
correlation between the time devoted on internet
screen-based activities (digital media) and
psychological well-being nor compulsive internet
use and psychological well-being. The available
evidence seems to suggest that the whole
psychological well-being among youth generation in
this samples were not contributed by the internet
use. It contradicted with the initial assumption that
psychological well-being will negatively be affected
by internet usage. The finding of this current
research seems inconsistent with the findings of
another research which tried to investigate the
screen-time and psychological well-being issues, for
example, the research of Cardak (2013) or Sharma
and Sharma (2018) that suggesting a positive
relation between a problematic internet use (internet
addiction) and psychological well-being.
The present study did not find the expected
result, however indeed replicate the findings of Chen
and Persson (2002) whereby also demonstrate that
the internet use (defined as average time weekly
spent on the internet) does not correlate with
psychological well-being. There are some
possibilities why the time devoted on the internet did
not relate with psychological well-being as also
explained by Chen and Persson (2002) regarding the
finding in their research, which also in line with the
finding in current study. First, it might because the
average duration participants spent for each screen-
activities was not more than 2 hours. It gives a
conclusion that on average participants did not spend
more than 19 hours using the internet-based screen
activities, suggesting a reasonable amount of time
online. Secondly, research has been suggested the
psychological well-being is not caused by the time
spent using the internet, instead affected by how an
individual feels during online activities, either guilt
of enjoyment which later on affecting their well-
being (Chen and Persson, 2002).
The results of the data analysis show that the
symptom of compulsive internet use for the samples
is at a moderate level (M= 22.74). This result means
that most of the 16-24 youth in Indonesia are still
able to maintain and control the usage of internet
screen-based activities, hence prevent them from
maladaptive internet usage. On the similar lines, the
psychological well-being level of samples is at
moderate to high category (M=111.99), which
reflects that in general the youth in Indonesia are
typically have a high level of meaning and purposes
in life, and in general believe they are growing in a
fully functioning person. In another words, the
psychological well-being within their self is well-
maintained.
Despite that, the present study did not find a
significant relationship between compulsive internet
use and the total score of psychological well-being.
Several reasons might explain the possible reason
why the expected correlation did not find. From the
side of the statistical analysis, it might cause by the
dispersion of the total score of CIU and PWB. In
particular, the level of CIU scattered on a moderate
level whereby the level of PWB also seen spread out
on moderate to high level, after that affecting the
tenuous correlation between variables.
Secondly, there are also research findings that
should be noted to explain why in some cases
psychological well-being did not determine strongly
by the problematic internet use, which defined as
compulsive internet use in the present study (or
internet addiction in some study). For example,
Nugraini and Ramdhani (2016) in their research
about the excessive internet use in 206 adolescence
16-24 aged in Indonesia noted the role of individual
factors to mediate the relationship between internet
use and psychological well-being. Their research
note that excessive Internet use predicted lower
psychological well-being of individuals with low
ICP-HESOS 2018 - International Conference on Psychology in Health, Educational, Social, and Organizational Settings
560

socially skilled. Therefore, it suggested that the
relation of internet-based activity and psychological
well-being attempted to be mediated by other
variables, in this case, personal factors such as social
skills.
Moreover, a study conducted by Reinaldo and
Sokang (2016) about problematic internet use (PIU)
among 474 college students in Jakarta, Indonesia has
suggested that online activities not have negative
influence on the participants’ daily routines,
although there is indeed an impact of internet use,
that is the group of participants tend to miss social
events due to internet usage. Therefore, internet use
is believed not to have a negative impact on students'
daily lives. The finding by Reinaldo and Sokang
(2016) appears to support the current finding,
suggesting that the internet use which manifesting
by the screen-time and the compulsivity of internet
use not linked to the negative impact on
psychological well-being. Some psychological well-
being research in Indonesia has found that the
primary resources to maintain the psychological
condition for Indonesian people are stable income,
education, health, career, family, needs, wealth and
social capital (Rahayu, 2016; Jaafar, et al., 2012),
therefore it might be suggested that the compulsivity
of internet use only contributes a small part of
Indonesian psychological well-being. In addition,
Kraut, et al. (2002) have suggested that internet does
not have a harmful effect on a person's
psychological well-being and even the number of
one's friends can increase because of friends found
in cyberspace.
Despite there is no finding of the correlation
between CIU to the PWB, a specific correlation
pattern between CIU and sub-dimensions of PWB
was present that is self-acceptance. The reverse
correlation means that the high compulsivity in
using the internet relates to the lack capabilities of
individuals to accept his/her attributes, both of their
positive and negative attributes. The low self-
acceptance also means that hard by an individual to
receive negative criticism and believing one’s
capabilities. According to Ryff (1989), self-
acceptance is the positive attitudes toward oneself,
both through present experience or past. This
positive attitude appears as the main characteristic of
the positive psychological function of an individual.
The finding is similar to the finding of the research
that has previously found a negative correlation
between internet use and self-acceptance (Sharma
and Sharma, 2018).
Return to the data available; screen activities
associated positively with CIU, specifically in
gaming and social media activities. Hence, it seems
fair to suggest if both of activities might indirectly
relate to the low level of self-acceptance. This
argument might work stronger for social media use
as much research implies the role of social media in
self-representation. For instance, Chou and Edge
(2012) found that heavy Facebook users were more
likely to believe that their cyber friends had happier
lives than them and tended to endorse a strong
feeling that life was unfair. In short, a person who
tends to spend a great deal time on social media
platform, such as in this case Facebook tends to have
perceptual distortions about the quality of other’s
lives compared to one’s own. In other words, it
reflects the shortage of how they accept their self
because of the comparison one made towards others
they see on the social media platform.
Arguably, people tend to feel dejected after
examining others’ profiles because of unflattering
comparison; they do not feel measure up to others’
glittering lives. Toma (2017) in her literature review
about Effects of Facebook Representation on
Emotional Well-Being proposed that the wrong
judgment about oneself distorted by some heuristic,
such as correspondence bias, whereby individuals
tend to assume that others' action reflects their
personality and stable dispositions, rather than
situational factors. Therefore, it leads the social
media users to assume that the flattering profile of
appears in social media reflects the actual part of self
which turn into illusions.
To sum up, the current research provides such
interesting findings and also answering the needs of
research regarding how people perceive the internet
to the self-acceptance, concerning emotional well-
being. However, the weak magnitude of correlation
suggested that the correlation should be interpreted
with caution, indicating that the use of the internet
might give a small effect on psychological well-
being. The current finding is still meaningful due the
significant correlation, despite the fact that the
correlation magnitude was small. Last, increasing
the number of samples is being suggested; there for
a replication study needs to do to confirm the
findings.
6 CONCLUSIONS
This research is a preliminary study to understand
the correlation between digital media use and
compulsive internet use to psychological well -being
in 16-24 years old Indonesian Youth. The result
revealed that the correlation between digital media
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561

used and compulsive internet use to PWB is
insignificant. However, there is a negative
correlation between compulsive internet use and the
sub-dimension of psychological well-being, which is
self-acceptance. The study adds more interesting
finding with regards to media use and psychological
well-being and also contributes to the research
finding which uses Ryff-Psychological Well-Being
concept, despite the single concept of well-being
like depression, loneliness, or stress. To sum up,
increasing the level of self-acceptance of someone
can be a preventive function to the adverse effects of
compulsive internet use among youth in Indonesia.
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