Personality traits associated with Internet addiction among college students in South India

Abstract

Usage of Internet and electronic gadgets have become a part of our daily life. Especially, nowadays students need to use Internet for various purposes including academic activities. But the uncontrollable use of Internet can interfere one’s daily activities and may develop an addictive behaviour. The current study was aimed to find the difference of personality traits among people who are addicted and non-addicted to Internet. It was also intended to find the influence of personality traits on Internet addiction. The sample consisted of 421 students collected by multistage random sampling method from Kerala, India, age ranging from 18 to 25 (mean = 20.09). NEO FFI-3 and Internet Addiction Test were used for data collection. Neuroticism was significantly higher among the addicted participants, while personality traits such as agreeableness and conscientiousness were more among the non-addicted students. Along with this, neuroticism was positively correlated with Internet addiction, whereas openness to experience, agreeableness and conscientiousness were negatively correlated. Furthermore, the study observed that neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness can predict Internet addiction. Besides, Internet addiction was found to be more among males than females. Similarly, nuclear family members were having more addiction than participants from joint family.