Prevalence of Internet Addiction among Seminarians in a Major Seminary in Kenya 1. Introduction Internet, a global system of telecommunications network is part of our daily lives and is being used everywhere in the world (Wallace, 2014). People use internet for various reasons: academic purposes, professional work, connecting to relatives and friends, online shopping and advertisement or leisure (Deursen & Dijk, 2009). Schools and universities use internet for teaching and learning. The more an institution uses technology as a way of learning and teaching the better the students are expected to perform (Condie & Munro, 2007). Thus, increased use of internet for academic purpose is supported by the public, the media and policy makers. The internet users in the world represent 4.2 billion which is 55.1% of the world population (Internet World Stats, 2018). According to the National Center of Education Statistic in United States of America (USA), the category of the population mainly using internet is the adolescent, who utilize internet more than once on a daily basis (Kist, 2008). A study conducted by Moreno and Kolb (2012) found that 22% of adolescents spend almost 10 hours each day using internet. It also revealed that youth may consider the cyber space more real, online information truer and more accurate rather than the real world. With increased popularity of the internet, people are using this as a medium for various activities with potential for addiction (Leung & Lee, 2012). While many people are excited about the convenient use of the internet (Schroeder, 2018; Weber, 2011), researches have proved that some of the internet users while trying to satisfy their needs through the internet are likely to manifest features of internet addiction (IA) (Spada, 2014; Young, 1998). IA is described as an impulse control problem expressed by an incapacity to slow down internet use that exerts a negative impact on major life domains such as physical health issues, interpersonal relationship problems (Yuan, Qin, & Liu, 2011). While IA is presently not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (DSM-5), it is actually regarded as a disorder of concern (Cheng & Li, 2014, Young, 1998). Internet addiction rates vary among young people from different countries. In Europe and in America, prevalence of internet addiction ranks from 7.9% to 25.2% among adolescents while the Middle-East and Africa had rates from 17.3% to 23.6% (Xin et al., 2018). In Africa, the prevalence of internet addiction is 36.1% (Internet World Stats, 2018). In Kenya, technology and especially internet has considerably changed the habit of people. Through use
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