Health impacts of excessive use of Facebook among university students in Bangladesh

Abstract

The internet has become an essential part of our daily life. But excessive usage can have a negative impact on the physical health of its users. Over the last decade, the use of Social Media (Facebook) has been increasing rapidly and the younger generations getting addicted to it. But all possible health impacts of excessive use of internet are yet to be thoroughly evaluated, especially in such a developing country as Bangladesh. The present study aims to understand possible health deteriorations from excessive use of Facebook in a cohort of university students of Bangladesh. A cross-sectional study was conducted on 1186 students from two public universities and 1472 from several private universities of Bangladesh using a comprehensive questionnaire. The data were analyzed using the chi-square test to understand the association between Facebook usage behaviors and physical health status. We found that ~70% of the students used the internet for at least 4–6 hours/day, and ~27% of them used Facebook for >3 hrs. Students frequently use social media (mostly Facebook) for news and social communication. About 50% of the students reported wasting time on Facebook and going to sleep late because of it. Importantly, 47.3% students reported that excessive use of Facebook results sleeping disturbance and has a negative impact on the concentration of daily works/studies (p < 0.001). In addition, they experienced several other health problems, including worsening eyesight (71.2%), headaches (15.4%), back and neck pain (28%). Although not statistically important, a fair number of students sought medical attention due to the daily excessive use of internet (p-value = 0.112). These findings demands better understanding of the all possible impacts of using excessive internet among the University students, which can help take the necessary initiatives to encourage good use of the internet. Further extension of this study is suggested at all education levels to reveal the full scenario of degree of excessive internet use and its impact on the healths of Bangladeshi students.

Facebook addiction and its related factors among medical students; a cross- sectional study in Bangladesh

“…Our data showed that factors such as, perceived positive family relationships, poor academic performance, moderate anxiety, moderately severe depression, Internet addiction, and moderate to high perceived stress were statistically significantly associated with Facebook Addiction. Many other studies also cited these demographic, psychosocial, and behavioral factors as significant predictors of Facebook addiction [14][15][16][21][22][23][24]26,27]. Personal financial situation and living with family members were found to be significant determinants of FA among medical students, which had not previously been recorded in Bangladeshi research.…”

“…Furthermore, excessive Facebook use can cause societal, familial, and romantic relationship conflicts, disagreements, discussions, and jealousy, as well as the opposite [23][24][25]. In Bangladeshi studies, Facebook Addiction was predicted to be influenced by several risk factors, including relationship failure, a history of domestic abuse, stressful life events, lack of concentration in daily tasks/studies, sleep disturbances from using Facebook more at night, and depressive symptoms [26,27]. In addition, some of them had additional health problems, such as back and neck pain, headaches, declining eyesight, etc [27].…”

Association between flaunting behaviors on social media and among the general population in Bangladesh: A cross‐sectional study

“…Other research has identified favorable connections between prolonged social media usage and poor sleep in the populace 79 . According to another recent Bangladeshi report, students and young people are prone to using Facebook during suicide attempts 80 . Hussain and Griffith discovered that PSNSU was linked directly to symptoms of psychopathological and psychiatric illnesses 66 .…”

Role of self-compassion and online/offline integration on internet addiction, aggression, and psychological well-being: A mediation analysis

“…[ 26 27 ] However, all intensive users cannot be generalized as being addicted to internet. Thus, a focus on intensive users who use internet for above 3.5–5 h[ 28 ] apart from academics was considered for the study to collect a homogenous sample.…”