Association between Urban Upbringing and Compulsive Internet Use in Japan: A Cross-Sectional, Multilevel Study with Retrospective Recall

The purpose of this study was to show the association between urban upbringing and compulsive internet use (CIU). The interview data of the sample (N = 2431) was obtained from the World Mental Health Japan Second Survey and a multilevel model was used to investigate the association. Multiple imputation was also conducted in this study. Growing up in a large city was significantly associated with higher Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS) scores (γ = 1.65, Standard Error (SE) = 0.45) and Mild CIU + Severe CIU (Exp(γ) = 1.44; 95% Confidence Interval (CI) (1.04–2.00)) compared to growing up in a small municipality after adjusting for both sociodemographic characteristics and psychopathology. This study showed a possible association between urban upbringing and CIU. Future studies with longitudinal design are needed to better understand this association.