Internet Addiction Among Nursing Students

Abstract

Introduction: The Internet is incorporated as a part of the day-to-day life of every individual irrespective of their age as its usage has been growing explosively worldwide. It has dramatically changed the current information and communication scenario, and there has been an explosive increase in Internet users worldwide in the last decade. As behavioral addiction, Internet addiction leads to symptoms traditionally associated with substance-related addictions namely salience, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse. The objectives of the study were to assess the level of internet addiction among nursing students and to determine the association between internet addiction and socio-demographic variables.
Methods: A quantitative approach with a descriptive design was used for the study. The setting chosen for the present study was Sree Gokulam Nursing College, Venjaramoodu, Kerala. The sample consisted of undergraduate nursing students who satisfied the inclusion criteria and were selected by simple random sampling. The sample size for the study was 185. The tools used for data collection were socio-personal proforma and the internet addiction scale by Dr. Kimberly Young, which categorizes internet users to normal internet users (0–20), mild internet addiction (21–49), moderate internet addiction (50–79) and severe internet addiction (80–100).
Results: The majority of subjects (91.9%) were females, single (95.7%) and the majority (48%) were under the age group of 19 to 20 years. Nearly half (47.6%) of the study subjects have internet access at their home. Among those 53.0% of subjects used Facebook as their most preferable site. The majority of the subjects were found to have normal internet usage (67.0%) and mild internet addiction 31%. The mean score of internet addiction was 15.13 and standard deviation was 1.27. There was no significant association between internet addiction and socio-demographic variables.
Conclusion: As the study finding indicates with the increased use of the internet in today’s society, there is a potential for overuse of technology and neglect of others and self as a result of internet addiction. Nowadays internet addiction is an increasingly recognized condition and one in which nurses can play a key role in management