Abstract :
Background: The Internet has become an essential part of our day to day life, especially among adolescents. It can be used for education, entertainment, and communication & sharing of information. If it is used excessively beyond a limit, it becomes an addiction and is becoming a significant concern. This study was carried out to estimate the prevalence of internet addiction among rural, urban, Government, and private school-going adolescents and its association with socio-demographic factors, internet-related variables, and comorbid depression.
Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional and comparative study was conducted in government and private schools in urban and rural areas of Telangana for three months. By using a simple random sampling method, 400 students of 10-13 years age group, studying in private, government schools of rural and urban areas were taken for the study. The study was conducted after obtaining approval from the institutional ethics committee. Students who had a history of internet use for the past one year were taken into study. Confidentiality was assured, and the voluntary nature of the study was explained. Semi structure intake proforma was used to collect age, gender, place of internet access, money spent on the Internet, duration of access, any quarrels happened among parents in the family, parental education, the purpose of internet use. Data was entered on Young’s internet addiction questionnaire and depression self-rating scale for children by Birleson.
Results: Prevalence of internet addiction was estimated in rural, urban, and government and private schools. Correlates for internet addiction is different in rural and urban samples. Prevalence of internet addiction was found to be 4% mild and 4% moderate among rural government sample.10% mild, 3% moderate among rural private adolescents. 18% mild, 10% moderate among urban Government schools. 35% mild, 22% moderate among the private urban sample. The highest prevalence of internet addiction among urban adolescents in private schools. Risk factors for internet addiction among the rural sample were found to be “purpose of use of internet” that is social networking. Students studying in private school among urban sample having the Internet at home, quarrels of parents at home, parental income (6000 to 15000), access of Internet on weekends at home were found to be predictors of internet addiction.
Conclusion: Internet addiction is widely prevalent among school-going adolescents’ needs attention
Keyword :
Internet addiction, Adolescents, Problematic internet use, Depression.