Internet Usage and Its Effect on the Lifestyle of University Students

With the diversity of internet technology in the world today, usage has spread across every sector of the economy and business operations. Students are not left out from the use of the internet. Most people all over the world are using the internet for scholarly works. Researches on the use of the internet by students have been conducted by many scholars. This research is focused on the various uses of the internet by students in the universities in Ghana and the effects of the usage on their lifestyle. A cross-sectional survey research design was employed. Self-administered questionnaire was the primary data collection instrument. One hundred and fifty-four (154) students were selected randomly for the study. Most of them were undergraduate students and a few of them were graduate students. Students in the universities in Ghana accessed the internet for two main reasons – for academic activities and for making friends from other parts of the world. The results of the study reveal that most students access the internet daily. They spent several hours on the internet in a day and also for varying days in a week. It was found that students were addicted to the internet and they accessed social media purposely for making friends. They spent varying sums of money on buying internet bundles; even they use their last sum of money to browse the internet. However, with long hours spent on the internet some of them did not make enough time for their academic activities, including visiting the digital libraries.

: Internet Usage Relationship (researchers' own conceptual framework)

Related literature
The Internet, mostly referred to as the mother of all networks due to how it was developed, is basically communication networks by which people can interact, influence many others and create new trends. It can again enable people to share news and information easily across the world. Internet is one of the largest and commonest technologies that has spread to all countries and it is liked by many people and therefore being used across the world. The number of Internet users in the world is on the increase and usage is for diverse purposes. Mashhadia and Kargozari (2011) conducted research and found that digital classrooms are considered to be a vital element in promoting and improving the traditional methods of teaching and learning. Interaction among students from different parts of the world would enable students learn more and easily understand what they learn. Internet usage makes students communicate with other students irrespective of wherever they are and they share information, knowledge, experiences, etc. about their programmes and researches. According to Berson (2000), it is a universal fact that the use of internet has a great impact on students' academic carrier. Internet access in schools, colleges, and universities has increased greatly over the last twenty (20) years (Berson, 2000). Friendship can be developed among students from different universities that can bring about effective discussion and collaboration among them. According to Kirschner and Weperies (2003), ICT can make higher education more efficient and productive because the technology has provided the best tools that can enhance and facilitate users' professional activities. These tools have also made academic libraries present at every place and at all time of the day for easy and fast access to and retrieval of information by students, lecturers, as well as researchers.
Internet mobile learning among college and university students has brought about a profound and various hub of knowledge. According to Ahmed and Bukar (2016) the majority of Aadamawa State University students in Nigeria who use the Internet for educational and entertainment purposes depended on their mobile devices for internet access. Fasae and Adegbilero-Iwari (2015) discovered that science students in Nigerian private universities who regularly access Internet facilities on their smart phones, using the emails, social media, and search engines, use it for educational and communication purposes. The main drawback for inadequate use of internet facilities in developing world like Ghana and other African countries could be due to the lack of effective internet connectivity and power cuts. According to Agboola (2010), there is a high level of mobile devise dependency for internet access among agricultural science students in Nigeria and they use the internet for educational and entertainment purposes. Otunla (2013) asserted that a large number of undergraduate students in Nigeria access and use the internet through their mobile phones and laptops with the assistance of modem as routers, whereas a few access internet through the University digital centre and none access it through the University Library. Data retrieval was easier for them resulting in having positive impact on students' educational achievements.
Elkind 's, (1967), theory on adolescent egocentrism pointed out the heightened self-consciousness during adolescence age of human being. The theory of adolescent egocentrism stated that it is a stage of self-absorption where the world is seen only from one's own perspective so they feel like being like adults. Thus adolescents are highly critical of authority figures, unwilling to accept criticism, and quick to find fault with others so they turn to use the internet hours upon hours. Adolescent egocentrism helps explain why teens often think they are the focus of everyone's attention. Also, adolescence period is a time of considerable physical and psychological growth and Duration of use Relevance of sites used Addiction Expenses on internet use Improved Learning Change in lifestyle change, which falls in line with the study of university students, on the Internet usage because most of them are within that age bracket and few of them have just passed that critical age.
Most students like to keep track ahead of their peers or to have a good balance with their peer groups in which they find themselves. At the expense of their notions, they try to live the life which is expected of them in the social settings in which they find themselves instead of the ideal life. That is the reason for most of them being seen in the various social media; thereby pushing them to the limit. Some of them could even go as far as upgrading their phone, by buying the current ones and selling the old ones, at a giveaway price, just to be abreast with the current trend.

Material and Methods
The principal aim of this research was to identify the internet usage by university students and the effects on their lifestyle in different universities in Ghana. This study employed a cross-sectional, quantitative research design. Self-designed questionnaire was the primary data collection instrument used that contained questions concerning demographic data, duration of stay on the internet, mode of accessing the internet, effect of usage on lifestyle, sites frequently used and the others. Respondents were encouraged to express the effects the use of the internet has on their lifestyle in relation to academic activities. The questions were set in simple English language so that the respondents would not find any difficulty in answering them. The questionnaire was pre-tested on ten (10) students from E.P. University College for their comment and suggestions; and the necessary corrections were effected. This contributed immensely to its validity and reliability.
Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 20.0 was used for the analysis of data solicited from the participants. Frequency distribution and percentages were used, as well as means and standard deviations to analyse the demographic and other data. The analysis of the primary data was tailored to the objectives that the research tried to achieve. The total number of respondents was one hundred and fifty-four (154) students from selected universities (University of Health and Allied Sciences, Ho Technical University, Evangelical Presbyterian University College) in Ghana; out of this number, the majority 91 (59.1%) were male and 63(40.9%) female students. Their ages ranged from 16 up to over 27 years; majority of 98 representing 63.6% were between ages of 16 and 24 years, 21(13,6%) had ages between 25 and 27 and 35 representing 22.7% were above 27 years. This showed that the participants were not very old and they would be always on the Internet as captured in the adolescent theory. For the number of years the students had been in the universities, 5 (18.2%) had been studying for one year, 12 representing 7.8% were in the universities for two years; these two groups could be graduate students who were involved in the study. In addition, 28 (18.2%) of the respondents were third year students and the majority 109 (70.8%) were in the universities for four years. These last two groups were the undergraduate students involved in the study. Majority of the respondents were in the universities for four years, these people would be accessing the Internet for few years in the universities. With regard to the level at which respondents were admitted into in the various universities, 94 (61.1%) were admitted into level 100, 35 (22.7%) entered the universities at level 200, 8 (5.2%) were admitted into level 300 in the universities, and the remaining 17 representing 11.0% of the participants were admitted into level 500 and these were the graduate students. Majority of the participants in the study were not old since the results showed that, 67 (43.5%) of the respondents were admitted into the University between the ages of 15-20 years, 58 (37.7%) between 21-25 years, 14 (9.1%) between 26-30 years and 15 (9.7%) above 30 years. Concerning whether the respondents had received any lesson on how to use the internet for academic purposes, 107 (60.5%) agreed and 47 (30.5%) disagreed. Hence, majority of the respondents had a fair idea of internet usage. This showed that they were fully prepared for the use of the Internet in the Universities. Referring to the analysis as shown in the table above, 125 (81.2%) used Internet but 29 (18.8%) did not use the Internet. This implies that majority of the respondents used the internet and it was in line with the findings of Berson, (2000) as captured in the literature. Again, 30 (24.0%) said they accessed the Internet on campus, 70 (56.0%) accessed it in their various houses, and 25 (20.0%) used the internet cafés. The internet, according to 8 respondents, representing 6.5% was accessed using their individual laptops, 15 (12.0%) accessed the intern using university computers, 100 (80.0%) used cell and or smart phones to access it, and very insignificant number of the participants 2 (1.6%) said they used other media. This implies that cell and smart phones were the popular media used by students to access internet services. This may be due to its portability thus making it possible for them to access the Internet anywhere and at any time. This finding was in line with the findings of Agboola (2010) and Otunla (2013) that most undergraduate students access the internet using mobile devices. It is noted also that in a day, 15 (12.0%) of the respondents spent between 1-3 hours on the internet, 20 (16.0%) spent 4-7 hours, 30 (24.0%) spent between 8-10 hours, 55 (44.0%) spent 11-15 hours on the internet, and 5 (4.0%), accessed the internet for more than 15 hours a day. Spending so many hours browsing the internet on daily basis as stated by the respondents may have its positive and negative sides. They may learn from different sources on the net or may perform poorly if on other hand the hours spent were not geared towards academic purposes.

Results and Discussions
On weekly basis, 50 (40.0%) used the internet every day of the week, 25 (20.0%) six days a week, and 30 (24.0%) accessed the internet five days a week and only 20 (16.0%) used the internet for four days or less in a week. This is an indication that students used the internet very much in the universities. This is in line with the findings of Jones (2002); on internet adoption and heavy usage behaviour among students. Majority did not, however, experience any problem in using the internet as indicated by 90 (72.0%) but only 35 (28.0%) stated that they had problems accessing the internet; these people may be some of those who had no lessons in accessing the Internet. The few who had problems accessing the Internet stated the problems faced to include, unexpected power outage, lack of network in the area they stayed, unstable connectivity, high cost of internet bundles, and inability to purchase enough bundle for browsing. According to 121 representing 78.6% of the respondents, they paid for accessing internet and 33 representing 21.4% did not pay for accessing internet services. Among those who paid for accessing internet, 97 (80.2%) spent between 50 and 100 GHC per month on internet usage, 13 representing 10.7% spent between 101 and 150 GHC, 7 (5.8%) spent between 151-200 GHC, and only 4 (3.3%) spent above GHC 200. Finding out how they got money to pay for the internet usage, 26 (21.5%) of those who paid to access the internet said that they paid from their personal income, 8 (6.6%) got money from friends, 28 (23.1%) got money from their parents, 52 (43.0%) spent money from feeding allowance given to them by their sentinels, and 7 (5.8%) spent money on the internet usage from their salaries. This meant that some of the students were workers and some engaged themselves in other forms of employment from which they derived some income. However, a large number of the students relied on others including parents, friends, and colleagues to pay for the usage of internet services. Finding out if the payment affected their usage of the Internet, 84 representing 69.4% of those who paid to use the Internet gave a positive response and 37 (30.6) gave a negative response. The data analysis showed further that 47, representing those who said that payment for the usage of the internet affected their usage, browsed the net only once a day, 30 representing 35.7% browsed the internet once a week and only 7 (8.3%) browsed the internet once a month. The last part of the questionnaire concerned the effects of internet usage on the lifestyle of the respondents; 132 (85.7%) of the respondents strongly agreed, and 15 (9.7) also agreed to the statement that, Internet is good and every student in tertiary educational institution must use it for academic purposes, 4 (2.6%) remained neutral but 2 (1.3%) and 1 (0.6%) strongly disagreed and disagreed respectively to the statement. The statement was significant with a mean value of 1.3182 and standard deviation of 1.68307 which implied that, almost all respondents saw the need of the internet and could be used for various purposes in their academic activities.
With regard to the statement that Internet is good; every student in tertiary educational institutions must use it to establish social relationship, 53 of the respondents representing 34.4% strongly agreed, 61 (39.6%) agreed but 21 (13.6) were neutral and 10 representing 6.5% strongly disagreed and also 9 (5.8%) disagreed with the statement. Majority of the students sampled for this research were of the view that Internet should be used by students to make friends with those who are in other countries. This result showed its significance with a mean value of 2.0974 and standard deviation of 1.12470 meaning that, internet was not used for academic purposes only by students but also enabled them establish and build social relationship on the social media. In addition, 58 (37.7%) strongly agreed to the statement that they were very happy whenever on the internet and 65 (42.2%) agreed with the statement while 24 representing 15.6% remained neutral but 5 (3.2%) strongly disagreed and 2 representing 1.3% disagreed. The significance of this was shown with the calculated mean value of 2.260 and standard deviation of 1.99281 Further analysis showed 57 (37%) and 49 (31.8%) strongly agreeing and agreeing respectively that they accessed internet for all their academic activities, however 29 representing 18.8% remaining neutral to the statement but 6 (3.9%) and 13 representing 8.4% strongly disagreed and disagreed respectively to the statement. The statement was significant with a mean value of 2.2597 and standard deviation of 1.99281 which implied that, almost all respondents agree they do need internet in various aspects of their academic activities. Again, 36 representing 23.4% of the respondents and 69 representing 44.8% agreed with the statement that they accessed electronic (digital) libraries on the internet for study, 33 (21.4%) however remained neutral but 7 (4.5% and 9 (5.8%) strongly disagreed and disagreed respectively that they accessed electronic (digital) libraries for study showing mean= 2.247, standard deviation 1.04982) which meant that internet in real sense, was used for carrying out major academic activities by students in every tertiary institution in Ghana.
Concerning reading electronic books and journals always on the internet, majority of the respondents 46 (29.9%) and 60 (39.0%) strongly agreed and agreed respectively, but 31 representing 20.1% of the respondents remained neutral to the statement while 7 (4.5%) and 10 (6.5%) strongly disagreed and disagreed respectively to the statement. With the mean value of 2.643 and standard deviation value of 1.28174, the responses given by the participants were very significant.
With regard to the statement of making friends on the social media, majority of the respondents, 32 (20.8%) and 44 (28.6%) strongly agreed and agreed respectively to the statement, however, 48 representing 31.2% were neutral to the statement but 7 (4.5%) and 23 (14.9%) strongly disagreed and agreed respectively to the statement that they make friends on social media. This finding was in support of Berson (2000) as captured in the literature. This was significant with the mean and standard deviation values of 2.792 and 1.51522 respectively as shown in the table above.
On the other hand, 31 (20.1%) and 45 (29.2%) of the respondents strongly agreed and agreed respectively that they spent money meant for food for accessing the internet, however, 23 representing 14.3% of the respondents were neutral to the statement but 25 (16.2%) and 30 (19.5%) strongly disagreed and disagreed respectively to the statement. This was significant since the calculated mean value was 2.481 and the standard deviation was 1.42058. This implied that majority of the students sampled for the study sacrificed their meals for accessing the internet. This was an indication that they saw the internet as being very important to them.
Concerning addiction to the use of internet 30 participants representing 19.5% strongly agreed and 49 representing 31.8% agreed to the statement that they were highly addicted to the use of the internet, 42 (27.3%) did not know if they were addicted to the internet or not, but 17 (11.0%) strongly disagreed and 16 (10.4%) said that they were not addicted to the internet. This was significant with mean value of 2.688 and standard deviation of 1.24838. Furthermore, 35 respondents representing 22.7% strongly agreed and 58 representing 37.7% agreed to the statement that they were addicted to the use of social media, 30 (19.5%) of the respondents did not know whether they were addicted to the use of the social media or not, however 14 (9.0%) were neutral but 17 (11.1%) and 17 (11%) strongly disagree and disagreed respectively that they were addicted to the use of the social media.
This was significant with calculated mean of 2.792 and standard deviation of 1.46649. As captured in the literature, Jones (2002) said that addiction can take up a considerable amount of time of university students thus having effect on their academic lifestyles.
Concerning real effect on students' academic activities, majority of the participants 34 (22.1%) and 46 (29.9%) strongly agreed and agreed that spending many hours on the social media had negative effect on performing their academic activities correctly, but a good number of respondents, 35 (22.7%) were neutral to the statement, however, 18 (11.7) strongly disagreed to the statement while 21 (13.6%) disagreed. This was affirmed by Deniz & Geyik (2015) that Internet played vital role in daily lives of university students, but most of the students do not use internet for courses related issues and research activities. This finding was significant due to the calculated mean value of 2.195 and standard deviation of 1.38939.

Conclusion
Male students were more than the female students and this informed the researchers that male students showed much interest than the female students in the study. It was not however clear if the male students access the internet more than their female counterparts. Most of the respondents were young for their ages ranged from 16 to 27 years. This implied that more young people go to the universities than the old people for it was only 35 respondents whose ages were more than twenty-seven years and most of them were admitted into the universities at level 100. Most of the respondents were in the universities for approximately four years, this means that majority of the respondents were undergraduates and having stayed in the universities for more than three year they would be accessing the internet for longer period of time and they could easily and happily provide the accurate data for the study. Most of the respondents received lesson on how to use the internet for academic purposes. This showed that they were fully prepared for the use of the Internet in the Universities Majority of the participants used the Internet in the universities. This meant that students knew the importance of the internet and the various benefits they would derive from its use. They accessed the internet at various places like houses, university campuses and internet cafes. Different media were used to access the internet; some of them used their own laptop computers, a few also used the computers in their universities but majority of them used cell phones to access the internet. This made it possible for them to access the internet at any place and at any time of the day. This compelled them to buy android powered phones or phones that can be used in accessing the internet. The results again showed that students spent different duration using the internet. Some spent between 1 and 3 hours, between 4 and 7 hours, between 8-10 hours, between 11-15 hours, and very few of them spent more than 15 hours on the internet in one day. Spending so many hours browsing the internet on daily basis as stated by the respondents may have its positive and negative sides on their lifestyle as well as their academic activities. They could learn from different sources on the net or can also perform poorly if on other hand the hours spent are not geared towards academic purposes.
On weekly basis, some used the internet every day of the week, some also used it six days a week, five days a week and also a few of the respondents used the internet for four days in a week. This was an indication that students used the internet very much in the universities. Majority did not however experience problems using the internet as indicated but however, very few of them had various problems in the course of using the internet; these people may be some of those who had no lessons in accessing the net.
When the researchers wanted to know if the students paid to use the internet, overwhelming majority paid to use the internet. They spent varying amounts ranging from 50 Ghana Cedis to 200 Ghana Cedis and only very few people spent over 200 Ghana Cedis to access the internet. This seemed to be somehow expensive to the students but they have to do that simply because all of them could not stay on campus for longer hours to access the Internet using the WIFI connectivity on campus. Few of them paid this amount from their personal income implying that they were engaged in some extra income generating activities. Some of them got the money from friends, parents, and colleagues to pay for using the internet. Some even use part of their feeding money given to them by their guardians. The payment for the use of the internet was basically buying bundles from the telecommunication companies to enable they connect to the internet through their networks. The payment for the use of the internet is so enormous that it had effect on their usage of the Internet. The effect was that some of them browse only once a day, some browse it once a week and a few of them browse the internet once a month. With this, they spent many hours on the internet.
With regard to the last objective of this study, the use of the internet had varying effect on their lifestyle; they first of all agreed that the internet was good to be used by university students. This implied that they derived a lot of benefits from the use of the internet and even during the locked down period of the Covid-19, they had lessons on the Internet and accessed the electronic library. They however expressed mixed feeling that it was good to be used by tertiary students for academic activities as well as for establishing friendship with people in other countries. The students felt very happy whenever they were on the internet and that was the reason why some of them access the Internet many hours in a day and also every day of the week. They accessed the internet for all their academic related activities. The various documents accessed by the students for their academic activities include online classes, conferences, electronic libraries, electronic journals, as well as electronic books for their academic work. It was not only for academic activities but they also made friends on the Internet. This implied that apart from accessing the sites for academic activities, they accessed the social media as well. That was the reason for their establishment of friendships on the internet. The participants confirmed that they spent their monies meant for food on buying bundles for accessing the internet. This showed how daring they were to access the internet. It could be said that majority of the students who participated in the research sacrificed their meals for accessing the internet. This was an indication that they saw the internet to be very important to them. The way they accessed the internet continuously, made most of them to be addicted to the usage of the internet. That was very necessary for some of them to sacrifice even their meals for browsing the internet. Their addiction to internet usage made them spent more hours on the internet every day. For the addiction to the use of the internet, majority of them were addicted to accessing the social media and not academic libraries, books, journals, or any other academic site. This implied that they spent more hours on the social media and this had some adverse effect on their academic work. Jones (2002) also found this in his research; enhancement of educational outcome, and changes in social life. Jones concluded that Internet usage for academic and social activities is of equal importance to university and college students.
With this result ascertained from this research, students were willing to access the internet and for that reason management of the universities must do everything possible to limit students' access to the social media. Lecturers and Academic Librarians must give them some tutorial as to how to access the internet and the sites they must access for academic purposes. Lecturers can give assignments and refer them to the libraries or academic sites from which they can get materials for their assignments. This research concentrated on the usage of the internet by students, the sites mostly accessed and the effects on their lifestyle. Another research could be conducted to ascertain the effects the usage of internet have on their academic performance.