Relationship between Emotional Well-Being and Internet Usage Among Emerging Adults

Abstract

Among the many aspects of well-being, emotional well- being can be conceptualized as the balance of feelings (positive and negative) experienced and the perceived feelings (happiness and satisfaction) in life, and is crucial to an overall well – being of an individual. The objective of this study is to understand the relationship between emotional well-being and internet usage among emerging adults. An empirical study was conducted using the Internet Usage Scale (2019) constructed by the researcher and the Scale of Positive and Negative Experience by Ed Diener et al. (2009) on a sample of 120 emerging adult participants (18-25 years) from Chennai. Descriptive statistics was used to analyze the sociodemographic data and inferential statistics were employed to analyze the data. Results revealed that there exists a significant relationship between internet usage and emotional well-being with internet use being negatively correlated with emotional well-being. Further, internet usage is found to be positively correlated with negative feelings among emerging adults.  Gender-wise no differences were observed in internet usage and emotional wellbeing.