ANTECEDENTS OF INTERNET ADDICTION AMONG COLLEGE STUDENTS IN INDIA

Abstract

The advent of the internet has dramatically changed our life, positively as well as negatively. Internet addiction is one such negative consequence of it. The present study aims at exploring how personality, loneliness, and affect (positive and negative) predict internet addiction among Indian students. Four psychological tools were used to measure the variables taken in the study. Internet addiction was measured by Online Cognition Scale (OCS), Personality was measured by Eysenck’s MPI (Short), Loneliness was measured by UCLA Loneliness Scale (UCLA-LS), and affect was measured by PANAS. Cronbach’s alpha on the current sample was: OCS (0.88), UCLA-LS (0.79), PANAS (Negative Affect 0.68, Positive Affect 0.77), and MPI (Extraversion 0.33, Neuroticism 0.58). For this purpose data were collected from a sample size of 205 participants, from undergraduate and postgraduate students. They are between the age group of 17 to 25 years, comprising 157 Females and 48 Males. Their mean age is 19.76 years. Multiple correlation indicate a significant correlation (0.34, p<0.001) among all the variables chosen in the study and all the predictors explained significant variance in the internet addiction.  Loneliness and Negative Affect emerged as the significant predictors of internet addiction in the current sample.

Keywords: Internet Addiction, Neuroticism, Extraversion, Loneliness, Negative Affect, Positive Affect.

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