Abstract
Worldwide Internet addiction is a newly emerging mental health and social issue among the youths causing neurological complications, psychological disturbances and social problems. Internet addicts make the Internet urgency more vital than family, friends and work. Several studies exposed that anxiety, backache, blurred vision, dry eyes, headache, sleep disturbance, depression, poor academic performance etc. are results of Internet addiction. Therefore, the objective of this study was to determine the Internet addiction as well as its psychological distress and depression among university undergraduate students of Bangladesh. The study was conducted among 475 students selected from five universities of Bangladesh from July 2015 to September 2015. The selected universities were Southeast University, University of South Asia, Primeasia University, Northern University Bangladesh and State University of Bangladesh. Each willing participants were subject of this study and they shared their opinion. The Young’s Internet Addiction Test (IAT), the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ-12) and Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-2) were used to determine Internet addiction, psychological distress and depression respectively. Results revealed that the university students showed varying degrees of Internet addiction, psychological distress and depression with respect to sex, age, year of study and residential status. The data revealed that 47.7% (127) male and 44.5% (93) female students showed severe Internet addiction followed by 27.1% (72) male and 33.9% (71) female students showed moderate Internet addiction, while 20.7% (55) male and 7.7% (16) female students had mild Internet addiction. The linkage between Internet addiction and sex was significant at P < 0.001. Furthermore, 29.7% (79) male and 32.5% (68) female students had psychological distress. Severe psychological depression was reported among 44.7% (119) male and 41.6% (87) female students. Equally year of study and residential status showed significant (P < 0.001; P < 0.05, P < 0.001) differences in Internet addiction and psychological depression. This study observed that university undergraduate students are at very close to the danger of Internet addiction and its pathological impact on psychological distress and depression. Therefore, the new generation is at great risk. However, without Internet scientific thinking is not possible. So only the rational use of the Internet can be fruitful in the long run.
Highlights
Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) is the extreme use of Internet that interferes with existence (Block, 2008)
Worldwide the prevalence of IAD is 6% in which Middle East accounts for 10.9%, North America accounts for 8%, Asia accounts for 7.1%, South and East Europe accounts for 6.1%, Oceania accounts for 4.3%, North and West Europe accounts for 2.6% (Ryan, 2014; Woollaston, 2014)
The socio-demographic profile of the students shows that the prevalence of Internet addiction and its pathogenicity to psychological distress and depression was greater in male that female students
Summary
Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) is the extreme use of Internet that interferes with existence (Block, 2008). It is a multidimensional compulsive cognitive and behavior symptoms that completely dominates the addict’s life (Pies, 2009). The variation of the prevalence of IAD may be because of the variation of assessment questionnaires, diagnostic criteria as well as selective use of participants. A study in the UK has been reported that the prevalence rates of the IAD as high as 18%, whereas very low incidence, 0.8% has reported in the Italy (Poli & Agrimi, 2012; Niemz, Griffiths, & Banyard, 2006). Another review of more than 100 studies in China showed that over 12% of male and 5% of female students disclosed signs of Internet addiction (Wallace, 2014)
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