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Modern Psychological Studies

Volume

29

Number

1

Department

Dept. of Psychology

Publisher

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga

Place of Publication

Chattanooga (Tenn.)

Date

2023

Abstract

Previous researchers have established comorbidities between behavioral addictions. Although online media use has been linked to disordered eating, the relationship between Internet addiction and binge eating disorder (BED) has not been examined. Our first aim was to examine the relationship between two types of Internet addiction and BED. It was hypothesized that those high in Internet addiction would report greater BED symptoms than those low in Internet addiction. Our second aim was to examine how online media use and body positivity content relate to various eating disorder symptomatology (EDS). We hypothesized that EDS would be positively correlated to online media use and negatively correlated with exposure to body positivity content. Participants (N = 497) in the study completed an online survey. Hypotheses were generally supported. Analyses found that those higher in compulsive online media use had higher binge eating scores. Also, greater Internet and social media use were associated with greater EDS, and greater exposure to body positivity was associated with lower EDS. Follow-up analyses compared how different online activities correlate with EDS. Limitations and future research of the study are further discussed.

Keyword

Internet use; Internet addiction; social media; body image; disordered eating; body positivity

Discipline

Psychology

Document Type

article

DCMI Type

Text

Language

English

Rights

http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

License

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/

Included in

Psychology Commons

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