SOCIAL INTEGRATION: TESTING ANTECEDENTS OF TIME SPENT ONLINE

Abstract

The literature on the relationship of social integration and time spent online provides conflicting evidence of the relationship of social integration with time spent online. The study identifies and highlights the controversy and attempts to clarify the relationship of social integration with time spent online by decomposing the construct social integration into its affective and behavioral dimensions . Thestudy tests antecedents and effects of time spent online in a random sample of senior level undergraduate students at a public university in Malaysia. The findings indicated that while self-report measures of behavioral social integration did not predict time spent online, and, the affective social integration had an inverse relationship with time spent online