Impacts of Internet addiction on sleep quality and

depression among young adults during COVID -19

quarantine period
SAKSHI PRIYA *1, DR SAKSHI BANSAL*2

1( Undergraduate student, Galgotias university, Uttar Pradesh ,India)

2(Assistant Professor, Physiotherapy, Galgotias University, Uttar Pradesh, India)

ABSTRACT
Background: .As all we know that internet is a new tool that is evolving into a day to day
life of everyone all over the world and it's uses rapidly increases among young adults and this
brought about addiction which not only effects sleep quality but also lead to depression. At
various aspects like loneliness, unconstructed time, stress during lockdown , problem at
adjusting their whole time at home can lead to various ‘Pathological Internet Addiction in young
adults during COVID-19 quarantine .With this background the present study was conducted to
study the effects of internet addiction on sleep quality and depression among young adults
during COVID 19 quarantine period.

Method: A total of 160 young adults of 18-40 years were voluntarily participated from
different places including Students, Workers and Others. All the Responses were collected
through various social platforms to assess the impacts of internet uses using questionnaires of
IAT( Internet Addiction Test for Internet use),PSQI( Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index for sleep
quality )and DASS( Depression, Anxiety And Stress Scale for depression).Data Were analyzed by
Pie- Charts and Tables.

Results: Our study result states that internet addition will have some impacts on sleep
quality and depression in Young adults. The results is concluded on the basis of responses
which we received from various responded.

Conclusions: Our finding showed that Internet Addiction strongly affect our sleep quality
and mental illness.

Keywords: internet addition, depression, disturb sleep behavior,

INTRODUCTION
As we all know that we are living in 21st
century with a unity in diversity. Not only
India but entire world is facing with
epidemic novel COVID-19 virus is newly
appeared virus and changing the strains of
virus which is spreading well rapidly in
India. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-
19),is called as severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) ,it
was first diagnosed in December 2019 in
the city of China ,Wuhan. It has been spread
into 200 countries with many cases and
confirmed deaths and has caused
depression among country people. The only
measure is prevention by Social distancing.
Therefore the Govt.of India imposed
Lockdown in entire Country due to which all
the citizens of India has closed in there
homes. As lockdown has for a long time
number of people has been addicted to
internet uses. The internet is a new tool
that is evolving into a day to day life of
everyone all over the world and it's uses
rapidly increases among young adults and
this brought about addiction which not only
effects sleep quality but also lead to
depression. At various aspects like
loneliness, unconstructed time, stress
during lockdown , problem at adjusting
their whole time at home can lead to
various’ Pathological Internet
Addiction'(1)in young adults during COVID-
19 quarantine .
Various social interaction app like
Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter, Email etc.
have been used by young adults for
acquiring Knowledge ,for any kind of
information or also for doing there work
from their home. Prolonged surfing on
online may affects the mental illness of
many individual's. Depression, anxiety, lack
of physical energy, dysfunctions, emotional
and behavioral symptoms as well as social
adaptions are some of the adverse reaction
which is caused due to internet addiction in study in daily/weekly email to individual
young adults ."Excessive or poorly under the age of 18-40 in Lockdown. The
controlled preoccupation “is termed as purpose of study is to notify all the
internet abuse and the word addiction has individuals about the impact of Internet
been related with the "Substance use”. The addiction on sleep quality and depression
immoderate used of internet is considered among young adults during COVID-19
quarantine period. This included (a) purpose
as addiction hence symptoms of Internet
of the study,(b) inclusion criteria,(c)
addiction is likely to be same as the
voluntary nature of study and (d)their rights
symptoms of nicotine, drugs and alcohol(2).
to withdraw from the study at any stage.
Individuals with internet addiction is They were given a proforma containing
probably at risk and required special care details of demographic (name,age,gender,
and treatment such as involving themselves height, weight), designation ,time spend per
month on internet, average duration of
into a positive creativity like Yoga, Spending
Internet ,sleep quality during last month and
time with family and many more to prevent
any more.It included the self -assessable
the risk of disturb sleep quality and other
questionnaire which was based on
psychological complication like depression,
following.
anxiety and other emotional and physical
complications. So it's the most urgent
remedies which has to be taken for
obsessive internet usage as it is considered
as absolute and definite mental illness. With
all this backdrop we presented a study on
the impact of Internet addiction on sleep
quality and depression among young adults.

METHODOLOGY
1.INTERNET ADDICTION TEST (IAT):
A total of 160 young adults of 18-40 years Internet addiction test by Dr.Kimberly
were voluntarily participated from different young is based on Internet Addiction
places including Students, Workers and Diagnostic Questionnaire (IADQ)which is
Others. Due to Lockdown all the data is composed of 20 items each points is of 5
collected using online questionnaire made points.(3)
through Google forms and is circulated
through various social networks (Facebook, Level of Interpretatio
WhatsApp, Email, College and Social Score/point Internet n
groups ) and among other platforms and s addiction
asked to spread the information about the 0-30 None Below average
 online user a self report type that's utilized to measures
the Severity of vary of common symptoms
31-49 Mild Average
of Depression, Anxiety and Stress.DASS in
online user, addition embedded stress/Tension in
the individual addiction to period of time and anxiety
has control scale that's exclusive choices of the DASS.
over internet
usage
50-79 Frequent
Moderat problems due
e to internet,
full impact on
life
80-100 Severe Significant
problems,
evaluate the
impact and
address the
problems

2.PITTISBURGH SLEEP QUALITY

INDEX (PSQI) is a self report instruments
that is meant to gauge the standard of sleep
throughout the last month’s. It embrace
nineteen things that produces seven
aspects of sleep (quality of sleep, sleep
latency ,sleep onset, sleep durations, sleep
disturbance, sleep medication, potency
sleep and day time dysfunction).

3.THE DEPRESSION ANXIETY AND

STRESS SCALE(DASS) may otherwise be
 RESULTS
After all questions were answered,
response of each participating student to
each of the 20 questions was noted. All the
20 responses, with respect to 6 point scale,
were added to obtain a final score for that
student. The score was indicative of level of
internet addiction of that student. Higher
the score, greater the level of addiction and
more are the chances of creation of
problems resultant from such internet
usage.

Scoring Pattern No. of Males Females Table1:Overall analysis to find out

interval students proportion of study subjects falling in the
category of internet addicts on the basis of
0-30 None 61 26 35
scoring system adapted for study(n=161)
31-49 Mild 48 23 25
The result indicated that 7.5% responded
50-79 Moderate 48 18 30 were staying online longer than they
80-100 Severe 4 02 02 needed which means they have a some
level of internet addiction whereas on
other hand 23% were frequently stay
online. Because of late logins at various
social platforms about 12.4 responded loses
their sleep. Excessive uses of Internet will
affect mental health is confirmed when
4.9%of responded is saying that they feel
depressed, moody or nervous when they
are offline. In this study we find that
Internet uses will disturbed the quality of
sleep which is confirmed by Using PSQI
scale that concluded that about 18 people
have taken more than 60minutes to fall
asleep each night which signifies that they
have severe difficulty in sleeping .There are
various reasons due to which our sleep will
get disturb such as having bad dreams,
going washroom, feel so hot or cold and
many more instead of all not taking 7 -8
hours of sleeping will signifies that they
might facing some type of difficulty in
sleeping.
Table2: Time taken to fall asleep
each night in minutes
100 responded is saying that the rate of
their sleep quality is fairly good during this
lockdown which is needed to corrected to
avoid internet addiction whereas 8 of them
is complaining that their quality of sleep is
very poor from last month. Mental illness is
results of excessive uses of Internet and
disturb sleep quality .In this study 5%
responded by saying that most of the time
they couldn't seem to experience any
positive feeling which means they have
severe core symptoms of stress in their life
on the other hand almost 29.2% said that
this is applied at some degree that reflects
they have mild symptoms of stress which
can be prevented. Difficulty in relaxing is a
symptom of stress which is measured
through DASS scale( n=54)were having
difficulty in relaxing at sometimes but 13
people are saying they almost always have
difficulty in relaxing which characterize
them into a degree of severity relative to
other population. Apart from that 6.2%
responded (n=10) that they almost always
felt panic which is severe core symptoms of
Anxiety which is developed because of
Internet Addiction and worse quality of
sleep in this lockdown similarly 36%(n=58)
responded that sometimes only they felt
Duration Scores No.of
Responses
Less than 15 0 32
minutes
15-30 1 62
minutes
31-60 2 37
minutes
More than 3 18
60minutes
panic. To prove all the above statement,
5.6% are saying that they almost always felt
that their life is meaningless such feeling
describes that their mental health is little
disturbed and they need care, time from
family. Which can be done when they need
to control their excessive use of internet
take proper sleep which helps them to feel
positive and comes out from such feeling of
loneliness, depression, stress and anxiety.

Fig 1: % showing that life was meaningless
DISCUSSION
Impact of internet addiction on sleep
quality and depression among young adults
during COVID-19 QUARANTINE period is not
investigated in any previous study. From
our study we find that there is remarkable
impact of Internet addiction on sleep
quality and depression. Those who have
categorized as severe internet addiction
have poorer quality of sleep and their
mental health is somehow disturb. In
previous study it showed that they
demonstrated the different parameters of
sleep quality i.e., subjective sleep quality,
sleep latency, sleep duration, sleep
disturbance, use of sleep medication, and
daytime dysfunction) which is significantly
associated with internet addiction which is
at peak because of tough time spent during
Lockdown.(6)
Some study also concluded that decrease
sleep duration during the night time,
increased need of sleep is a sign of disturb
biological rhythm is associated with internet
addiction. Responded having difficulty in
falling asleep at night during lockdown are
likely to involved in excessive use of
Internet which develop internet addiction in
them(7).
In our study internet addiction is found in 4
responded which means they stay online
longer than they needed, work of colleges
and grades are always suffer because of
time spent on internet.11 responded have
bad quality of sleep as they take less than 7
hours of sleep which indicate Internet
addiction among them. Internet addiction
effects our eyes and sleep hormones occurs
due to lights and sounds coming from
screen of smartphone , laptops and
computer which keep individuals awake
during nights (8). Because of poor quality of
sleep and excessive use of internet almost
5%responded feel depressed, Moody or
nervous. Hence we concluded that internet
addiction have some negative impacts on
mental health of responded which is
confirmed by our study as 5% couldn't seem
to experience any positive feeling and 9.3%
wasn't feel worth as a person.
CONCLUSIONS
After doing the result analysis, and the
REFFERENCES
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“Study of Internet Addiction In
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Undergraduate Medical Students.” , IOSR
and to entertain themselves in this tough
Journal of Dental and Medical Sciences
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(IOSR-JDMS) ,2018. 17,. 51-553.
Our finding showed that Internet Addiction
strongly affect our sleep quality and mental
illness. Limitation of the study was that
these scores were not confirmed face to
face because of Locke down situation and
further scope of Different study designs
with larger sample sizes are needed in order
to fully explore the factors that affect sleep
behavior, depression and Internet
addiction among Young adults during
COVID-19 QUARANTINE period in India.
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