Universitat de Barcelona

The purpose of this study was to validate the efficacy of two virtual environments to evaluate Internet and social networks addictions. Anxiety levels registered in each subject were compared with the results that they previously obtained in the CERI and IAT questionnaires.

The initial hypothesis of the experiment was that those subjects who obtained a higher score in the questionnaires, should also react more strongly when were exposed to the two virtual environments with significant stimuli.

The results suggested that the home’s environment was effective, showing significant differences between the experimental group (those who had obtained a higher score of IAD) and the control group (those who had lower score) in the level of anxiety registered. However, this difference did not occur in the subway's environment, or at least not at significant levels.