Loneliness, Social Anxiety and Psychological Well-Being in Relation to Internet Addiction among Women College Students

Abstract

The study was done to understand the loneliness, social anxiety and psychological well-being in relation to internet addiction among women college students. The research hypotheses of the study were as follows: 1. There will be no significant relationship among loneliness, social anxiety and psychological well-being on internet addiction among women college students; 2. There will be no significant relationship between age and internet addiction among Women college students;. 3. There will be no significant difference between type of internet users on loneliness, social anxiety, psychological well-being and internet addiction among Women college students. The study was ex post-facto in nature, and cross sectional design was used. Purposive sampling strategy was adopted. The sample comprised of 285 Women college students from Chennai city. The age range of the sample was from 17 to 26 years. Study procedures included the administration of the following measures (i).Davis Online Cognition Scale (DOCS) (Davis, 2001), (ii). UCLA Loneliness Scale (Russell, 1996), (iii). Social Anxiety Questionnaire (SAQ) (Caballo, Salazar, Irurtia, Arias and CISO-A Research Team, 2012) and (iv). PGI General Well-being Measure (Verma & Verma, 1974). Pearson’s Correlation coefficient and ‘t’ test were computed to test the hypotheses. Results are discussed in the light of the findings of the study.