Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing © 2015 Indian Association of Health,

2015, 6(8), 820-822 Research and Welfare

http://www.iahrw.com/index.php/home/journal_detail/19#list ISSN-p-2229-5356,e-2321-3698

The prevalence of internet addiction and depression: A study

between Tamilnadu and Kerala college students
Raja Lakshmi and Nandha Kumara Pujam
Department of Clinical Psychology, SRM Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre, Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu

Internet has become an integral part of our life for the past one decade. In India use of internet is massive among
students. There is growing concern about whether internet usage is excessive and does it leads to addiction.
Furthermore prevalence study of Internet Addiction is need of the hour. The present study is to find out the
prevalence of Internet Addiction and its associated depression in college students of Kerala and Tamil Nadu. In this
study 200 college students from Kerala and Tamil Nadu were randomly selected. They were assessed for internet
addiction and depression using the measures Internet Addiction Test and Beck Depression Inventory. This was a
cross sectional study and the analysis include mean, standard deviation, percentage and 't'. Results show that 9% of
college students of Tamil Nadu and 12% of college students of Kerala have depression associated with internet
addiction.

Keywords: internet addiction, depression, college students

Internet has been used for communication, research, entertainment,
education, gaming, pornography and business transactions (Kraut et
al., 1998; Ley et al., 2014). The internet allows people to establish
social connections that cannot be achieved easily in modern urban
life, to express their thoughts and feelings freely without restraint and
to exaggerate aspects that the individual wants to feature (Orsal et al.,
2013). Other factors that may increase internet use are the
availability of the internet, opportunities to access prohibited content
and the ability to play games and take risks (Young, 1999; Teo &
Lim, 2000; Buckingham, 2002). Healthy use of the internet is
defined as the use of the internet to achieve a desired goal within an
appropriate period of time without intellectual or behavioral
discomfort (Davis, 2001). The term “internet addiction” was
proposed by Dr. Ivan Goldberg in 1995 for pathological compulsive
internet use (Goldberg, 1996). Internet addiction is generally defined
as an uncontrollable desire for excessive use of the internet,
devaluation of time spent without connecting to the internet, intense
nervousness and aggression in the case of deprivation and
progressive deterioration of social and family life (Young, 1999;
Young, 2004). Internet addicts give more importance to internet than
family, friends and work. They stay online for long hours, prefer to
contact people with internet instead of other forms of social contact
and want to stay online rather than experiencing life events outside
(Weinstein & Lejoyeux 2010). There were about 42 million active
internet users in urban India in 2008 as compared to 5 million in 2000
(Internet and Mobile Association of India, 2008). Recently the
problem of internet overuse was included in DSM V as internet use
gaming disorder (APA, 2013).
Internet Addiction is more common in males than in females and
those students who are pathological internet users had low self
esteem (Niemz et al., 2005). In a cross sectional study 987 students
were assessed using internet addiction test. Using the Young's
original criteria the prevalence of internet addicts was found to be
Correspondence should be sent to Raja Lakshmi
Department of Clinical Psychology
SRM Medical College, Hospital and Research Centre
Kanchipuram, Tamil Nadu
0.7% and those who had excessive internet use had high scores on
anxiety and depression (Goel et al., 2015). In another study by Yen et
al. (2007) evaluated 2014 students and reported that adolescents
with internet addiction had higher ADHD symptoms, depression,
social phobia and hostility. Even young people without mental
health problems report addiction to the internet and mental health
problems as a result of spending hours on porn sites, online shopping
sites, luck and computer games, hobby sites and chat rooms (Young,
1996) . Internet addiction has also been reported to be associated
with anxiety disorders (Kratzer & Hegerl, 2008) and personality
disorders (Bernardi & Pallanti, 2009).
We conducted this study with an objective to find out the
prevalence of internet addiction and depression between Tamilnadu
and Kerala college students.
Venue: The study was conducted at two different colleges of
TamilNadu and Kerala.
Method
Participants
In this study sample consist of 200 college students (100 from Tamil
Nadu and 100 from Kerala) and fulfilling the following inclusion
and exclusion criteria.
Inclusion criteria:
● Age ranging between 18 years to 22 years
● Education above 12th standard
● Active Internet users
● Both males and females
Exclusion criteria:
● History of mental or physical illness.
In this study the following tools were used for data collections.
Socio Demographic Data Sheet: Information regarding their age,
gender, residing area, socio-economic status.
Internet Addiction Test: The IA-T (Young, 1998). It contains 20
items on a 5-point Likert scale that measures the severity of
compulsive use of the internet. The scale showed very good internal
consistency, with an alpha coefficient of 0.93. A score at the IA-T
821 Indian Journal of Health and Wellbeing 2015, 6(8), 820-822

between 20 and 39 are referred to as healthy Internet users. Scores Table 4 Shows the Mean, Standard Deviation, 't' values of Internet
between 40 and 69 represents over users or frequent problems and a Addiction among college students of Tamil Nadu and Kerala. The
score above 69 suggests severe problems in life due to excessive mean values of internet addiction among college students of Tamil
Internet usage. Nadu and Kerala were 53 and 60 respectively.
Beck Depression Inventory: (Beck et al., 1961): This is a 21 item self The obtained 't' value of internet addiction 1.97 which was lesser
report measuring the emotional, cognitive, somatic and motivational than the p value 2.45. The result of the study showed that there was a
symptoms of depression. BDI assess mood, pessimism, sense of significant difference between internet addiction of Tamil Nadu and
failure, self-dissatisfaction, guilt, punishment, self-dislike, self- Kerala.
accusation, suicidal idea, crying, irritable, social withdrawal, body
States Mean±SD p t
image, work difficulties, insomnia, fatigue, appetite, weight loss,
body preoccupation and loss of libido. Each item is scored on a scale TamliNadu 53± 20.13 2.45* 1.97
from 1 to 3. Kerala 60± 20.25

Study design Discussion

This was a cross sectional study and simple random sampling was
used. A total of 200 college students were evaluated on the Internet
Addiction Test. Demographically, students tended to be both male
Statistical analysis and female and had completed at least a four-year college degree.
Descriptive statistics (Mean and standard deviation) and t-test were The present study found that 9% of college students of Tamil Nadu
used to analyse the data. and 12% of college students of Kerala have depression associated
with internet addiction. This finding is in accord with previous
Results research (Davis et al., 2002). In one study Orsal et al. (2013)
evaluated first year college students and reported positive
Table 1 Showing the Depression associated with Internet addiction.
correlation between internet addiction and depression. One possible
The percentage of depression was found out whether the depression
explanation can be they experience negative consequences of
is associated with internet addiction. The result clearly indicates that
internet addiction such as impaired academic performance, conflict
9% of college students of Tamil Nadu and 12% of college students of
with parents and social isolation. They might also experience a sense
Kerala have depression associated with internet addiction.
of rejection by their parents, isolation from their peers in the real
States Depression N % world, and low self esteem in college (Yen et al., 2007). To
TamilNadu Mild 45 45% compensate for feelings of inadequate social support, interpersonal
Moderate 46 46% security, or personal competence, the students increases their online
Severe 9 9% interaction to increase their self esteem through approval from
Kerala Mild 29 29% others or through achievements in online gaming but actually it
Moderate 59 59% exacerbates rather than diminish the depression (Ko et al., 2014).
Severe 12 12% The present study also found that male college students of Tamil
Total 200 200% Nadu and Kerala are more likely show internet addiction, this finding
corroborates with earlier research (Kim et al., 2006; Yang & Tung.,
Table 2 Shows the Interaction between Gender and Internet Addiction.
2007). In one study Goel et al. (2013) examined 987 students and
Gender difference was found out whether there was any reported that internet addiction is more common in male students than
interaction between gender and internet addiction. The result clearly in female students they indulge more in social networking, chatting
indicates that males in Tamil Nadu and Kerala are more likely shows and downloading medial files. One possible explanation can be there is
internet addiction a lack of control on the internet activities of male students such as
States Gender N % reading the news, gaming and gambling, virtual sex, chatting and
meeting new people (Wang, 2001). Another possibility can be males
TamilNadu Male 64 64%
spent more time on playing online games, while female students spent
Female 36 36%
more time on social networking (Durkee et al., 2012). In contrast some
Kerala Male 72 72%
previous studies show that there is no difference between men and
Female 28 28%
women in terms of level of internet addiction (Orsal et al., 2013). It can
Table 3 Show the relation between Socio-economic status and be explained that there may be similarities between genders with
Internet addiction respect to family and peer pressure, academic structure and economic
The results indicate that the students belong to middle class family situation experienced by the students (Orsal et al., 2013).
are more likely to be internet addicts. The present study found that the students belong to middle class
States SES N % family are more likely to have internet addiction, Orsal et al. (2013)
reported that students from high family income status report internet
TamilNadu Low 34 34% addiction.
Middle 40 40%
High 36 36% Strength and limitations of the study
Kerala Low 25 25% In the present study all the students were assessed using
Middle 45 45% standardized tools. The study findings cannot be generalized as it
High 40 40% represents only one college from both states.
 LAKSHMI AND PUJAM/ THE PREVALENCE OF INTERNET ADDICTION
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