Mr. Zach Lee, an MPhil candidate in the Department of Finance and Decision Sciences (FDS), and Dr. Christy Cheung, Associate Professor of the Department of FDS, have recently won a Distinguished Paper award for their paper entitled “Problematic Use of Social Networking Sites: How Self-Esteem Associated with Its Development” at the 2012 International Conference on e-Commerce, e-Administration, e-Society, e-Education, and e-Technology held in Hong Kong. The paper mainly investigated how the self-esteem of a web surfer affects the development of problematic Internet use in the context of Facebook, a social networking site. The research model was tested on 200 Facebook users and the results showed that low self-esteem predisposed individuals to the development of a preference for online social interaction. This preference in turn resulted in an excessive use of Facebook.

The two-day conference aimed to provide a platform for researchers, engineers, academics and industrial professionals worldwide to present their research results and development activities in e-Commerce, e-Administration, e-Society, e-Education and e-Technology. This year, the conference received 520 paper submissions, and 18 papers were selected as Distinguished Papers.