The Association between Internet Addiction and Emotional Intelligence: A Meta-Analysis Study

Abstract

Summary Recently, internet addiction has turned into a major concern all over the world. According to scientific evidences, people with higher emotional intelligence are less addicted to the Internet; however, the type and strength of this relation is still a matter of debate. Due to a lack of information in this regard, the present study has been conducted as a meta-analysis method to this end. A comprehensive search in Scopus, Web of Knowledge, ScienceDirect, Medline, Springer, Google Scholar, Magiran and Scientific Information Database (SID) with no restrictions of time and language was done with the following keywords: ‘Internet’/‘Internet users’, ‘Internet addiction’, and ‘emotional intelligence’. Pooled correlation of the present study was −0.393; [95%CI, −0.564−0.190]. The results of the Cochran Q (Q = 623:192, p = 0.000) and I2=97.75% index showed a high heterogeneity between studies included in the meta-analysis. No publication bias was observed. In general, there was a moderate and inverse relation between Internet addiction and emotional intelligence; however, it seems that there is a relation between some of different personal, social, and cultural traits. Therefore, further studies are needed for the confirmation of the claim put forth.

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