Internet Addiction and Its relation to the self-esteem among

College Students

By

NAME

SCHOOL

DATE
 ABSTRACT

Research indicates that maladaptive patterns of Internet use

constitute behavioral addiction. This article explores the research

on the social effects of Internet addiction. Internet use is one

of the most important tools of our present-day society whose

impact is felt on college students such as increased use of

Internet. It brings change in mood, an inability to control the

amount of time spent with the Internet, withdrawal symptoms when

not engaged, a diminishing social life, and adverse work or

academic consequences, and it also affects self-esteem of the

students. The main objective of this study is to explore the

Internet use and its relation to and self-esteem among college

students.
 Introduction

Internet is being integrated as a part of day-to-day life because

the usage of the Internet has been growing explosively worldwide.

It has dramatically changed the current communication scenario,

and there has been a considerable increase in the number of

Internet users worldwide in the last decade. With the advancement

in media and technologies, Internet has emerged as an effective

tool in eliminating human geographical barriers. With the

availability and mobility of new media, Internet addiction (IA)

has emerged as a potential problem in young people which refers

to excessive computer use that interferes with their daily life.

The Internet is used to facilitate research and to seek

information for interpersonal communication and for business

transactions. On the other hand, it can be used by some to

indulge in pornography, excessive gaming, chatting for long

hours, and even gambling. There have been growing concerns

worldwide for what has been labeled as “Internet Addiction,”

which was originally proposed as a disorder by Goldberg[1]

Griffith considered it a subset of behavioral addiction that

meets the six “core components” of addiction, i.e., salience,

mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse.

Increasing research has been conducted on IA.[2,3] With regard to

IA, it has been questioned whether people become addicted to the

platform or to the content of the Internet. A study suggested

that Internet addicts become addicted to different aspects of

online use where it is differentiated between three subtypes of

Internet addicts: excessive gaming, online sexual preoccupation,

and e-mailing/texting.[5,6] According to the study, various types

of IA are cyber-sexual addiction, cyber-relationship addiction,

net compulsions, information overload, and computer addiction.

On the other hand, social media are any Web-based computer-

mediated tools to cocreate, share or exchange information, ideas,

pictures or videos in virtual communities and networks (such as

message boards, social networks, patient forums, Twitter, blogs,

and Facebook) The availability of social media opens up new

avenues for researchers to easily collect data, especially from

sources that may have previously been difficult to access. This

has led to a massive surge in social media analytics (whereby

posts or chats are analyzed via qualitative methods or aggregate

numerical data collection). The order of magnitude of data and

the speed with which it is made available (approaching real time)

make social media a potential tool to revolutionize health

research.

However, these new research avenues are not without ethical

challenges. In common with other research, potentially difficult

considerations surround the purpose and value of the research,

benefits and harm to participants, as well as privacy, informed

consent, and confidentiality. However, Internet research is very

different from traditional research and as such brings about many

different ethical challenges. Whereas procedures are well

established for obtaining ethical approval for traditional

research, how far these can be transferred directly to Internet-

mediated research is difficult to decipher. Whereas the ethical

issues of social media research have been much debated, the

attitudes of social media users (either posters or lurkers) and

researchers have rarely been sought Researchers currently seek

guidance from a wide variety of sources, such as individual

institutions, research supervisors, subject specialist guidance

and increasing guidelines proposed specifically for research

using social media.

This systematic review summarizes the existing research that has

evaluated attitudes on the ethical considerations of research

using social media. This will help to contribute to, and

consolidate, current research practice as well as to clarify

those ethical issues most pertinent to the public and

researchers. This, in turn, will help guideline developers to

formulate evidence-based guidelines for researchers conducting

research using social media.

 Methods

Tools used

1. Sociodemographic data sheet: A self-made, semistructured,

sociodemographic data sheet was prepared to collect the
participant's details, and details of the Internet use

2. Internet Addiction Scale: The IAS[14] is a 20-item scale

that measures the presence and severity of Internet
dependency. This questionnaire is scored on a 5-point scale
ranging from 1 to 5. The marking for this questionnaire
ranges from 20 to 100, the higher the marks, the greater the
dependence on the Internet

3. Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale: This scale was developed by

sociologist Rosenberg[16] to measure self-esteem, which is
widely used in social science research. It is a 10-item
scale with items answered on a 4-point scale – from strongly
agree to strongly disagree. Five of the items have
positively worded statements and five have negatively worded
ones. The scale measures state self-esteem by asking the
respondents to reflect on their current feelings. The RSES
is considered a reliable and valid quantitative tool for
self-esteem assessment.

Sample

A sample of 50 college students studying BSIT were selected

through random sampling from the _________________. (name of your
school and campus)
 Procedure

In the initial phase of the study, a total of fifty college

students were c were selected according to the convenience of the

researchers. After receiving permission from the Dean and to my

adviser data collection was started, researcher approached the

participants directly during their free hours, explained the

purpose and method of using the questionnaires, and also ensured

the confidentiality of the data. Communication and a consent were

taken from the participants. Only the day selected 50 students

were included in the study. The college selected for collecting

the data did not have free Wi-Fi services. Responses were

collected from the participants having Internet connection on

their android phones. First, the sociodemographic data sheet was

filled up by the participants. After exclusion of the

participants, the questionnaires were distributed to the included

participants and after completion, they were scored and

interpreted according to the tool. Confidentiality of the data

has been maintained.

 Results

Socio-demographic and Internet user's characteristics

Fifty (50) Colleges students participated in the study. The mean

age of the students was found to be 21.68 years (±2.82). Students
were unmarried and were single. Majority of the students reported
that they use Internet for pleasure and mainly get involved in
activities of social networks and online gaming. Focusing on
users' characteristics and Internet activities, it was found that
the concerning age of computer use initiation was 15 years,
frequency of Internet use per day in hours was 3–4 h, and
frequency of Internet use per week in days was every day.

Internet Addiction Level

Table 1suggests the frequency of IA on the IAS. The frequency of

mild users (IAS score: 20–49) was 10 and the percentile was 20.
The highest frequency and percentile found in the severe users
(80–100) were 18 and 36, respectively. The next higher frequency
found in moderate users (50–79) was 22 and the percentile was 44.

Table 1

Internet Addiction Frequency Percentile

Mild Users 10 20%

Moderate Users 18 36%
Severe Users 22 44%
IAS-Internet Addiction Scale

Conclusion

In the last one decade, the Internet has become an integral part
of our life. In this research paper, an attempt has been made to
study the severity of Internet use and its relation to self-
esteem of college students.

This study has a few limitations too. The study did not manage to
clarify the causal relationship between Internet Addiction and
self-esteem. Internet Addiction may precipitate psychiatric
symptoms which may lead to IA.. The study did not allow us to
differentiate the essential use of the Internet from its
recreational use. Future studies can be implicated to analyze the
results of the students according to different streams of
subjects.
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