*Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Maharaja's College, University of Mysore, Mysore-570 006, India
**Associate Professor, Psychology, Maharaja's College, University of Mysore, Mysore-570 006, India
Online published on 17 November, 2016.
This study attempted to estimate the prevalence of internet addiction among adolescents in and around Mysore City. The sample consisted of equal number of (360 each) boys and girls aged between 16 to 18 years and were chosen from 16 different schools and Pre university colleges in and around Mysore city. The students completed Internet addiction scale developed by Young (1998). The scale measures extent of internet addiction in 3 levels-normal, problematic and addict. Chi-square tests were employed to find out the significance of difference between levels of addiction and association between demographic variables and levels of addiction. Results revealed that on the whole only 26.3% of them were found to be normal internet users. A majority of 54.3% of the adolescents was found to have problematic addiction and 19.4% were completely addicts. Further, male adolescents were found to have higher levels of addiction than female adolescents, adolescents from urban area were more addicted to internet than adolescents from rural area and lastly, adolescents studying in aided schools were found to have higher levels of internet addiction than adolescents studying in government and unaided schools. However, adolescents studying in different grades and medium of instruction did not have significant influence on internet addiction.
