The purpose of this survey is to clarify current situation of "internet-media addiction (IMA)" among Japanese school pupils. An original IMA tendency scale was constructed based on literature analysis. We conducted a questionnaire survey of 5029 Japanese school pupils from the fourth grade of elementary school to the third grade of junior high school. To investigate the psychosocial background of IMA, subjects were classified into four groups: from a low addiction group to a high addiction group. The results of ANOVA indicate that the high addiction group had higher scores of school absenteeism tendency, negative family relationships, sleep problems, and mental health problems. These results imply that school pupils' IMA tendency may be strongly related to their social behavior and mental health. Therefore, intervention in IMA should be conducted, while, internet-media themselves do not necessarily always have a negative influence. A new systematic approach to IMA focusing on the psychosocial background, instead of just directly forbidding the usage of internet-media, is needed. Further study among more subjects should be conducted to increase the reliability and validity of our pilot survey.
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