Abstract

To investigate the association between shyness and Internet usage, 88 undergraduate students completed the Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale, the Online Cognition Scale, a computer/Internet familiarity scale, the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised (short version) and the Abbreviated Duke Social Support Index. Significant correlations were found between shyness, Internet use, and personality traits. A stepwise regression analysis indicated that shyness was predicted by introversion, neuroticism, and problematic Internet usage as assessed by the Online Cognition Scale.

Introduction

IM (2004) NOTED that three out of four Americans now have Internet access from home. The Internet is used by young and old alike, and people access the World Wide Web in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons. Research into this field has attempted to delineate between healthy and problematic use of this medium. Several studies have shown that Internet use is associated with feelings of loneliness and depression.¹ Problematic Internet use has been associated with increases in impulsivity and increases in social comfort while online.¹ Social discomfort is a factor associated with shyness, and several studies have looked specifically into the extent to which the shy, introverted person uses the Internet as a form of socializing. Not surprisingly, when looking at relationships formed by shy individuals, Ward and Tracey found that shy people reported more trouble with face-to-face relationships than with online relationships.² Chak and Leung found that shyness was associated with Internet ad-diction.³ Specifically, the computer addict tends to be a shy, full-time student who spends longer times online per session and is online more times during the week than less shy individuals. Hamburger and Ben-Artzi found that introverted and neurotic females tend to show increased use of the Internet for social purposes, using e-mail, chat rooms, and discussion services via the Internet more than do non-neurotic and nonintroverted males and females.⁴ The present research was to investigate further the relationship between the trait of shyness and Internet usage.

METHOD

Thirty-four male and 54 female undergraduate students enrolled in an introductory psychology class at a state college completed questionnaires for this study (Mage 19.2 yr, SD 1.8). Fifty of the students were freshmen, 29 sophomores, and 9 upper classmen.

TABLE 1. CORRELATION MATRIX FOR ALL VARIABLES

	(1)	(2)	(3)	(4)	(5)	(6)	(7)	(8)	(9)	(10)	(11)	(12)	(13)	(14)	(15)
(1) Age	—
(2) Sex 0.07	-0.07	—
(3) Total shyness	-0.02	-0.13	—
(4) Global OCS	-0.10	-0.13	0.41*	—
(5) Social comfort	-0.05	-0.11	0.44*	0.79*	—
(6) Loneliness/Depression	0.02	0.03	0.28*	0.77*	0.43*	—
(7) Distraction	-0.11	-0.12	0.22*	0.79*	0.47*	0.54*	—
(8) Diminished impulse control	-0.16	-0.17	0.30*	0.81*	0.45*	0.61*	_0.53*	—
(9) Computer familiarity	-0.09	-0.16	0.09	0.54*	0.43*	0.30*	_0.50*	0.46*	—
(10) Extraversion	-0.01	0.21*	-0.63*	-0.32*	_0.37*	_0.21	_0.23*	_0.16*	_0.09	—
(11) Neuroticism	-0.09	-0.08	0.38*	0.13	0.20	0.06	_0.03	0.14	_0.07	_0.35*	—
(12) Psychoticism	-0.08	-0.34*	-0.01	0.14	0.11	_0.01	_0.21*	0.09*	_0.15	_0.02	_0.05*	—
(13) Global social support	-0.07	0.14	-0.17	-0.19	_0.29*	_0.06	_0.09	_0.09	_0.01	_0.28*	_0.21*	_0.27*	—
(14) Social interaction	-0.11	0.03	-0.11	-0.12	_0.19	_0.07*	_0.05*	_0.05*	_0.04	_0.22*	_0.15	_0.20	0.96*	—
(15) Social satisfaction	-0.08	0.37*	-0.25*	-0.31*	_0.43*	_0.04	_0.22*	_0.17	_0.15	_0.30*	_0.28*	_0.34*	0.59*	0.35*	—

*p 0.05 or better.

The questionnaire used in this study included the following:

1. A demographic page asking for age, sex, and the respondent’s preference for face-to-face or online conversing.

2. The Revised Cheek and Buss Shyness Scale,⁵ which has 14 items answered on a 5-point Lik­ert scale; the mean score was 34.9 (SD 9.2).

3. The Online Cognition Scale (OCS),¹ which has 36 items answered on a 7-point Likert scale. This is a global measure of problematic Internet use. There are four subscales on the OCS: social comfort (M 36.6, SD 11.7), loneliness/depression (M 17.9, SD 6.4), diminished impulse control (M 23.9, SD 9.2), and distraction (M 25.6, SD 8.8).

4. The Yang and Lester Computer Usage Scale,6 which asks which of 20 computer/Internet activities respondents had engaged in (such as created a Web site, installed extra memory, and bought something on eBay). The mean score was 11.7 (SD 3.7).

5. The Eysenck Personality Questionnaire Revised, short version,⁷ which has 12-item subscales to measure extraversion–introversion, neuroticism, and psychoticism; each item is answered yes or no. Mean scores were extraversion 8.7 (SD 3.1), neuroticism 5.9 (SD 3.4), and psychoticism 2.4 (SD 2.0).

6. The Abbreviated Duke Social Support Index,⁸ an 11-item self-report questionnaire comprising two subscales: social satisfaction (7 items) and social interaction (4 items), answered on a 4point Likert-type scale. Mean scores were social satisfaction 29.2 (SD 5.4) and social interaction 22.0 (SD 16.0).