Internet Addiction: A Comparative Study Among Children in the State of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh

Abstract

Background: The Internet is the leading and most resourceful foundation of information in the world today. Internet has become a part of many peoples, mostly young in everyday routine. There has been an explosive growth in the use of internet not only in India, but also worldwide in the last decade. Currently internet has become an important tool for education, entertainment and communication. Increased internet usage may lead to point of addiction, adverseintellectual, habituation, mental complications, corporal disturbance and social effects.India now has the world’s second-largest internet user population, with approximately, 460 million Internet users in 2017.This paper explores the research on how children and youth of depend on all type of gaining the knowledge and communication ininternet and then become addicts. Aim: The aim was study to find out the internet addiction among children in the state of Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, India. Method: A comparative study was conducted among children (n=70) of two district between Sagar (Madhya Pradesh) and Surajpur (Chhattisgarh), India, to assess the pattern of internet usage. Researcher have employed semi-structured interview schedule to collect primary data it’s includes like socio-economic profiles of the respondent with Young’s Internet Addiction Test Scale (IAT) and their age between 7-18 years old.The study time duration of January – May 2015 and data was analyzed using SPSS version 21.0. Result:Out of 70 participants 50% of the both districts. 42 (60%) were Males and 28 (40%) Females. Majority of 42 (60%) were 15-<18 years old and 67 (97.5%) were students.  8 (21%) of the respondents were spent their time on internet in cyber cafe for 3-4 hours per day.In this study, 25 (37.9%) Father, 9 (13.2%) Mother, 28 (57%) Brothers and 5 (29.4%) Sisters of the respondents were using internet. According to Young’s 20-item scale were 9 (12.85%) respondents (score >79) severe addicts of internet, and most important these all are belonging from Sagar. 39 (55.72%) respondents as moderate (score 50-79) and 22 (31.43%) respondents were mild and safe (score <49).

Keywords: interned addiction, internet usage, adverse effects, internet addiction disorder