Proposal paper Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1500 words

Proposal paper - Essay Example ncreasingly explored if and how the Internet develops or impairs social skills development (Engelberg & Sjà ¶berg, 2004) and psychological health (Campbell, Cumming, & Hughes, 2006; Titov et al., 2008). Previous studies showed mixed results on the impact of Internet use on children, adolescents, and young adults. On the one hand, several researchers showed that high Internet usage can lead to Internet addiction, which can consequently contribute to the formation of poor social skills and adjustment (Engelberg & Sjà ¶berg 2004), including bullying behaviors (Schoffstall & Cohen, 2011), depression, and loneliness (Kim, LaRose, & Peng, 2009). On the other hand, other researchers learned from their studies that Internet usage can be constructively used to develop better social skills (Campbell et al., 2006; Titov et al., 2008), while other scholars observed from their study that the purposes of Internet usage can impact social skills development and psychological welfare (Ceyhan, 2011; Kim et al., 2009). However, these researchers have not examined how Internet use can lead to positive or negative effects on social skills. In particular, they have not examined if only certain uses of the Internet and Internet usage duration contribute to poor social skills and psychological health (i.e. using it mainly for entertainment or socializing with strangers), and if gender and age impact these positive/negative outcomes. The purpose of this paper is to review the research on the positive and negative effects of high Internet usage/purposes on social skills, and to provide support for the gap in literature that will spur further research. Do certain purposes of using the Internet and duration of Internet usage positively or negatively affect social skills? The independent variables are Internet usage and purposes of Internet usage, as well as gender and age, while the dependent variables are social skills. For the age levels, grades three to four are considered as young