Abstract
The objective of this study was to investigate not only the prevalence of internet addiction among the male and female students in the University of Sargodha but also the relationship between internet addiction and anxiety level of students. There were 300 students, from Masters’ classes, as sample, selected through cluster sampling. Internet Addiction Scale (I.A.S) and Beck Anxiety Scale were used as assessment tools for data collection. Data was analyzed using mean, standard deviation, T-test and regression analysis. The results showed that prevalence of internet is more in male students than female students. Regression analysis showed a positive and significant relation between internet addiction and anxiety level among University students. Key Words: Internet addiction, anxiety, students, University of Sargodha.
1. Introduction
The internet is a global computer network providing a variety of information and communication facilities, consisting of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols. The origins of the Internet reach back to research commissioned by the United State Government in the 1960s to build robust, fault-tolerant communication via computer networks. While this work together with work in the United Kingdom and France lead to important precursor networks, they were not the Internet. There is no consensus on the exact date when the modern Internet came into being, but sometime in the early to mid-1980s is considered reasonable. It is a network of networks that connect millions of the people around the world. The internet is a widely recognized channel for information exchange, academic research, entertainment, communication and commerce. Now the use of internet and its outcomes has become a controversial issue. At one hand it is a most important and useful need of modern man while at the other hand people are sickly addicted to it. Researches show that the frequent use of internet caused a lot of psychological and mental disorders like anxiety, depression, stress and obsessive compulsive disorder. Our present research is also an investigation of internet addiction and its negative influences on students.
Conclusion
The finding of this study showed that there is a significant difference in mean value of internet addiction {t(2, 298) =7.16, p<.01} in male and female students of University. It shows that students are addicted to internet. Findings showed that 34 % of students are having problematic internet addiction. These students are in great danger of becoming adverse and sever internet user and which will, then definitely, affect them negatively both physically and mentally. The presence of 2.7 % severely addicted internet user, obviously, pointed out the continuous increasing number of the students reaching at the worst point of internet addiction; sever addiction. Results of the present study also indicate that there is also a significant mean value of anxiety {t (2,298) = 1.41, p<.01}. Findings show that students of University of Sargodha are having significant internet addiction as well as anxiety.
