Daily Internet Use and Its Association with Drug Behaviour in Adolescence

Abstract

The paper deals with the most widespread electronic medium among adolescents – the Internet. The main aim was to discover how young people spend their leisure time in the online world, with a particular focus on the relationships and differences between Internet use, particular activities, and legal drug use. The chosen quantitative research methodology was applied through a Leisure Time Activity Questionnaire and selected questions from the SMF questionnaires on a sample of 180 respondents attending secondary school, aged 15 to 19. We found that almost 90% of the respondents spend more than 2 – 3 hours a day on the Internet, of which 20% spend up to 6 hours or more. Despite expectations, we found significant negative relationships between the amount of time spent online and rates of legal drug use. Additional analysis showed significant differences between groups of adolescents in online activities such as gaming, listening to music, killing boredom, watching pornography and arranging activities. These results point to a possible protective effect of selected types of activities that young people engage in while online in relation to engaging in drug use behaviours.