title: Sociopsychiatric characteristics of adolescents who use computers to excess.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study attempted to investigate current computer use by Korean adolescents, consequences of its excessive use and its relationship to psychiatric symptoms.
  
  
  METHODS
  Questions for computer use, Computer-Related Addictive Behavior Inventory (CRABI), computer-induced behavioral alterations and Symptom Checklist-90-Revision (SCL-90-R) were assessed in 1296 students (12-19 years).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Students were divided into three group users: minimal users (63.4%), moderate users (30.5%) and excessive users (6.1%). Computer-induced behavioral alterations occurred most frequently to excessive users and it was significantly correlated with total CRABI score. Average score on nine symptom dimensions and three global indexes of SCL-90-R were able to discriminate four decreasing orders of subjective psychiatric complaints: most frequent in excessive users and then moderate, non- and mild users, in order.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Those adolescents with excessive computer use were found to show serious sociopsychiatric problems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychiatry, Dong-A University College of Medicine, Busan, Korea.
authors.forename: C K
authors.initials: CK
authors.lastname: Yang
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000294:Adolescent Behavior / Q000523:psychology*; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D016739:Behavior, Addictive / Q000523:psychology*; D002648:Child; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007723:Korea; D008297:Male; D012737:Sex Factors; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors