Internet addiction among students of selected schools of South Delhi

Abstract

In the time of lockdown and home confinement, internet use is expected to rise. Recognizing this, we did this study to find the prevalence of internet addiction in school-going adolescents from South Delhi. Employing systematic random sampling, we selected 509 students, who had used/been using the internet in the last 30 days. Data collection was done using a self-administered questionnaire assessing internet addiction utilized Young’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT). The study observed prevalence of 51.3%, which was significantly associated with students in high school, parents’ education, upper socioeconomic class, and access to an internet at home. Additionally, we observed that students primarily used the internet for nonessential purposes (movies, online shopping, social networking, online games, chatting, cyber- sex/pornography) rather than for academic purposes. The increasing trend of internet use, that too for entertainment, may be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic and can lead to a significant problem.