The role of online emotions and gender in the prediction of problematic internet use

The objective of the research is to analyze whether emotional online content and socio-emotional e-competencies predict problematic internet use in the university population according to gender and country, as well as to compare the level of these variables in 1524 university students (50.2% Spain vs. 49.8% Mexico). Descriptive analyses of the variables used are performed, differentiating by gender and country, using the nonparametric Kruskal Wallis test. The relationships between variables are then analyzed by means of nonparametric bivariate correlations with Spearman's Rho. Correlational analyses between the variables are performed using Fisher's Z-transformation, differentiated by gender and country. The ability of the variables to predict problematic internet use, differentiating between girls and boys, is then examined using Multiple Linear Regression. In the regressions, the variables are included in blocks to avoid possible collinearity, and the Step-wise method is used within each block to assess the contribution of new variables.