Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2023;42(13):11101-11114.
doi: 10.1007/s12144-021-02374-3. Epub 2021 Oct 19.

Cyberloafing behaviors among university students: Their relationships with positive and negative affect

Irem Metin-Orta  1 , Dilek Demirtepe-Saygılı  1
Affiliations

Cyberloafing behaviors among university students: Their relationships with positive and negative affect

Irem Metin-Orta et al. Curr Psychol. 2023.

Abstract

With the technological advances, the use of digital devices, such as laptops, tablets, or smartphones in the educational setting has become prevalent among young people. Accordingly, there has been an increased concern among scholars on students' in-class Internet use for personal purposes; namely, 'cyberloafing'. Considerable research has demonstrated the adverse effects of in-class Internet use on students' learning environment and academic performance. The present study particularly investigates the relationship between cyberloafing behaviors and positive and negative affect among university students. It examines five different online activities including sharing, shopping, real-time updating, accessing online content, and gaming/gambling separately to gain greater insight into students' cyberloafing behaviors. The sample consisted of 267 undergraduate students who filled out questionnaires measuring cyberloafing behaviors, positive and negative affect, and demographical information including the use of the Internet and mobile technologies. The initial analyses showed that male students had higher scores in shopping, accessing online content, and gaming/gambling than females. The latent variable analysis revealed that among different activities of cyberloafing, accessing online content and gaming/gambling were positively correlated with positive affect, while sharing was positively associated with negative affect among students. The findings emphasize the importance of evaluating cyberloafing as a part of students' psychological well-being rather than a variable merely related to academic achievement. The findings of the study also enlighten researchers and educators in developing appropriate policies and interventions to manage misuse of the Internet in class.

Keywords: Cyberloafing; Internet use; Negative affect; Positive affect; University students.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

Conflict of interestThe authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The Proposed Model
Fig. 2
Fig. 2
Results of the Path Analysis. Note: Lines represent significant relations of the proposed model. Numbers are standard estimates (β) of the hypothesized relations. * p < .05
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

    1. Akar I, Coskun BK. Exploring the relationship between creativity and cyberloafing of prospective teachers. Thinking Skills and Creativity. 2020;38:100724. doi: 10.1016/j.tsc.2020.100724. - DOI
    1. Akbulut Y, Dönmez O, Dursun ÖÖ. Cyberloafing and social desirability bias among students and employees. Computers in Human Behavior. 2017;72:87–95. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2017.02.043. - DOI
    1. Akbulut Y, Dursun ÖÖ, Dönmez O, Şahin YL. In search of a measure to investigate cyberloafing in educational settings. Computers in Human Behavior. 2016;55:616–625. doi: 10.1016/j.chb.2015.11.002. - DOI
    1. Akgün F. Investigation of high school students' cyberloafing behaviors in classes. Education & Science/egitim Ve Bilim. 2020;45(201):79–108. doi: 10.15390/EB.2019.8419. - DOI
    1. Anandarajan M, Simmers CA. Developing human capital through personal web use in the workplace: Mapping employee perceptions. Communications of the Association for Information System. 2005;15:776–791. doi: 10.17705/1CAIS.01541. - DOI

LinkOut - more resources