Prevalence of Internet Addiction and Associated Psychological Co-morbidities among College Students in Bhutan

Abstract

Introduction: Globally 3.5 billion people have access to internet and most of them are young adults and adolescents. In South Asia, Bhutan has the highest proportion of population with internet access at 37% in 2016. Many studies in Asia have reported significantly high level of internet addiction among college going students. In this light, this study was designed to estimate the prevalence of internet addiction and other co-morbidities. Methods: This cross sectional study included 823 first year and final year students aged 18-24 from six colleges in Bhutan. A self-administered questionnaire consisting of three parts was utilized for data collection. The data was entered and validated in Epidata and analyzed using STATA/IC 14. Results: The prevalence of moderate and severe internet addiction was 282 (34.3%) and 10 (1%) respectively. Positive correlations between internet addiction and psychological well-being (r= 0.331 95% CI: 0.269, 0.390), between Internet Addiction score and years of internet usage (r=0.104 95% CI: 0.036, 0.171), age and years of using internet (r= 0.8 95% CI: 0.012, 0.148) were observed. The commonest mode of internet use was martphone 714 (86.8%). The use of computer laboratory (aPR 0.80, 95%CI: 0.66, 0.96) and internet use for news and educational purposes (aPR 0.76, 95%CI: 0.64, 0.9) showed protective effects. Conclusions: The prevalence of internet addiction is high among the college going students in Bhutan. This warrants timely interventions to address the problems of internet addiction.

Internet Addiction among University Students during Covid-19 Lockdown: Case Study of Institutions in Nigeria

“…In the present globalized era, the internet plays a vital role in the daily lives of approximately 40% of the world's population, with more than 3 billion internet users reported in 2016 (Rosliza et al, 2018). In 2018, it was estimated that around 3.5 billion people had access to the internet and most of them were young adults and adolescents (Karma et. al., 2018).…”

Internet use and health in higher education students: a scoping review

“…Factors threatening mental health and well-being approached Internet use mainly from the problematic/addictive perspective including evidence with broad concept of poor mental health and well-being ( Tangmunkongvorakul et al , 2019 ; Tenzin et al , 2018 ; Zhou et al, 2020 ; Hou et al , 2019 ; Lattie et al , 2019 ). Some of the articles also specified the factors in more detail, for example: distress ( Al-Gamal et al , 2015 ; Mamun et al , 2020 ; Gedam et al , 2017 ); depression ( Khalil et al , 2016 , Othman and Lee, 2017 , Peterka-Bonetta et al , 2019 ; Younes et al, 2016 ; Iwamoto and Chun, 2020 ; Gedam et al , 2017 ; Tao et al , 2017 ; Asibong et al , 2020 ; Chupradit et al , 2020 ; Haand and Shuwang, 2020 ; Pang, 2020 ; Visnjic et al , 2018 ); anxiety ( Younes et al , 2016 ; Campisi et al , 2017 ; Iwamoto and Chun, 2020 ; Asibong et al , 2020 ; Panova et al , 2020 ; Gedam et al , 2017 ); stress ( Younes et al , 2016 ; Campisi et al , 2017 ; Liu et al , 2017 ; Iwamoto and Chun, 2020 ; Unsar et al , 2020 ); social anxiety ( Weinstein et al, 2015 ); fear of missing out or FOMO ( Lattie et al , 2019 ; Pang, 2020 ); low happiness ( Kitazawa et al , 2019 ) and increase in suicide risk ( Alpaslan et al , 2015 ; Kurt, 2015 ; Poorolajal et al , 2019 ).…”