Internet addiction among college students

The study explored the incidence of internet addiction among undergraduate college students in an exclusive university in Manila, Philippines. It looked into the process of addiction to the internet and its components that are attractive for the college students. It then investigated the negative effects of internet addiction on grades, family and social relationships, and personal emotional functioning of the internet addicts. Finally, a profile of boys and girls at two levels of internet addiction were made. The relationship of age, gender, subject major, and personality types of those addicted to the internet were also looked into. The participants of the study were 1172 undergraduate students from an exclusive university in Manila, Philippines. Their age spectrum was 17-22 years and the mean age was 19.01. The research had employed a quantitative-qualitative research design, and used two self reporting psychological measures together with the Internet Addiction Impairment Index, and in depth interviews. Statistical analysis was conducted for the quantitative data and results interpreted and described. The outcomes of the interviews helped to augment the discussion of the results. The results indicate that there are cases of internet addicts among the undergraduate students and the negative effects of addiction have begun to affect the addicted students. However, they are not yet in alarming numbers nor have they reached a devastating level. The research also found out that while age, extroversion/introversion, depression and neuroticism do not have noteworthy correlation with internet addiction, gender, and subject major have significant relationship