Problematic internet usage in US college students: a pilot study

Abstract

BackgroundInternet addiction among US college students remains a concern, but robust estimates of its prevalence are lacking.MethodsWe conducted a pilot survey of 307 college students at two US universities. Participants completed the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) as well as the Patient Health Questionnaire. Both are validated measures of problematic Internet usage and depression, respectively. We assessed the association between problematic Internet usage and moderate to severe depression using a modified Poisson regression approach. In addition, we examined the associations between individual items in the IAT and depression.ResultsA total of 224 eligible respondents completed the survey (73% response rate). Overall, 4% of students scored in the occasionally problematic or addicted range on the IAT, and 12% had moderate to severe depression. Endorsement of individual problematic usage items ranged from 1% to 70%. In the regression analysis, depressive symptoms were significantly associated with several individual items. Relative risk could not be estimated for three of the twenty items because of small cell sizes. Of the remaining 17 items, depressive symptoms were significantly associated with 13 of them, and three others had P values less than 0.10. There was also a significant association between problematic Internet usage overall and moderate to severe depression (relative risk 24.07, 95% confidence interval 3.95 to 146.69; P = 0.001).ConclusionThe prevalence of problematic Internet usage among US college students is a cause for concern, and potentially requires intervention and treatment amongst the most vulnerable groups. The prevalence reported in this study is lower than that which has been reported in other studies, however the at-risk population is very high and preventative measures are also recommended.

Adolescents’ Compulsive Internet Use and Depression: A Longitudinal Study

“…Some studies have reported an association between Internet use and depression (e.g., Christakis, Moreno, Jelenchick, Myaing, & Zhou, 2011;Durkee, Kaess, Floderus, Carli, & Wasserman, 2011;Liu, Desai, Krishnan-Sarin, Cavallo, & Potenza, 2011). However, other studies have reported that aspects of Internet use such as Facebook use (i.e., social Internet use) is not linked to depression (Jelenchick, Eickhoff, & Moreno, 2013) despite warnings about so called "Facebook depression" (e.g., O'Keeffe & Clarke-Pearson, 2011).…”

A Comparative Study of Mobile Internet Usage between the U.S. and Korea

“…Zhang et al (2008), Dixit et al (2010), Christakis et al (2011), andCasey (2012) all studied internet addiction in college students. In hypothesis 4 (H 4 ), the author suggests that college student mobile users have more severe mobile internet dependency than non-student users.…”

Expressed Needs of Students for Prevention of Internet Addiction: A Content Analysis Study

“…Family Control children's use of the Internet (4), intimate members of the family (3), pay attention to children's needs (8), managing children's plans (5), and engaging children in social activities (9).…”

“…Education Life skills training (7), education about Internet usage (6), promote awareness about risks of internet addiction (7), leverage media, scientific workshops and research programs (6), and deliver education programs to primary school students about Internet usage (8).…”

“…Studies stated that students seem greatly susceptible to IA than other groups (7)(8)(9). More than 30% of college students have demonstrated IA signs, such as spending significant amount of time online, compulsive behavior, and time-management problems (10).…”