Abstract

Internet use has been receiving increasing attention from researchers and clinicians. However, few theoretical models of problematic internet use have been tested empirically, especially in Asia where a considerably high number of internet users have been documented. This study proposed variations of and tested Davis’s [1] modified cognitive-behavioural model of problematic internet use in an Asian sample. The participants were 296 university students (60.8% female, 39.2% male) between 17 and 49 years of age in Singapore. The results from path analyses did not support Davis’s model as a whole. However, significant pathways were found between psychopathology and maladaptive cognitions, as well as between maladaptive cognitions and generalised problematic internet use. Implications for research foci in the future were discussed.