Internet and well-being

You are sitting at the office, reading emails, listening to songs from YouTube. Now you’ve left work and you are using a navigation application to avoid traffic, and back at home you watch a new Netflix series while participating in a heated discussion via WhatsApp. Wherever you look, the Internet plays a crucial part in our lives and has a major influence on us: It affects our work environment, our leisure time and the way we communicate with others. As such, we will claim in this chapter that it also impacts on our psychological processes. The chapter will open by examining the seven unique psychological components of the Internet environment. Then, we will move on to describe the way these factors impact on our well-being. This influence will be assessed in four different domains: personality, intimate relationships, e-therapy and online intergroup contact.