Digital Media Usage and Prevalence of Internet Addiction among Undergraduate Students in South Africa

Internet and digital media for educational purposes have significantly improved knowledge creation. The Internet has proven itself to be a valuable resource in the enhancement of knowledge production and dissemination. The purpose of the study was to establish how excessive non-academic use of the Internet detrimentally affects undergraduate students’ daily lives. Using survey design, a total of 390 University undergraduate students comprising mainly adolescents/ young adults were selected using stratified random sampling at two South African universities, namely Fort Hare and Nelson Mandela. Data were collected using the Modified Internet Addiction Test for Undergraduates (MIATU), a modification of Internet Addiction Test (IAT) questionnaire. 282 (72.3%) use of the respondents indicated that they make use of the Internet daily with 34.8% spending more than 10 hours. More than 60% have access to at least two electronic devices. Most of the respondents stayed online longer than intended (x 2.88), slept less at night due to Internet use (x 2.63) and hence spent less time studying owing to Internet surfing (x 2.27). Furthermore, the amount of time spent on the Internet had a significant relationship with the level of influence the use of the Internet had on respondents (B = 0.250, t = 4.850, p < 0.05). The findings are indications that the excessive amount of time spent on the Internet served as a distraction from school work, a situation that put students at a disadvantage in as far as academic productivity was involved. These findings clearly suggest that the uncontrolled use of new media is both a hazard and a potential danger to academic productivity.

[1]  James A. Roberts,et al.  The invisible addiction: Cell-phone activities and addiction among male and female college students , 2014, Journal of behavioral addictions.

[2]  Mark D. Griffiths,et al.  A Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Internet Addiction , 2016 .

[3]  Abiodun Olaide Iyoro,et al.  Internet Access and Usage by Undergraduate Students: A Case Study of Olabisi Onabanjo University, Nigeria , 2013 .

[4]  Anthony J. Onwuegbuzie,et al.  The relationship between library anxiety and learning styles among graduate students: Implications for library instruction , 1998 .

[5]  F. Shamsudin,et al.  Factors Influencing Students’ Intention to Use Internet for Academic Purposes , 2011 .

[6]  M. Marranzano,et al.  A pilot study of Internet usage patterns in a group of Italian university students , 2012, Italian Journal of Public Health.

[7]  Ayoku A. Ojedokun,et al.  Internet Access Competence and the Use of the Internet for Teaching and Research Activities By University of Botswana Academic Staff , 2003 .

[8]  Donald O. Case,et al.  Looking for Information: A Survey of Research on Information Seeking, Needs and Behavior , 2012 .

[9]  Muhammad Nasir Khan,et al.  EFFECT OF INTERNET ON THE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE AND SOCIAL LIFE OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS IN PAKISTAN , 2010 .

[10]  Phyllis Schumacher,et al.  Internet Use Among Female and Male College Students , 2000, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[11]  Aderonke O. Otunla Internet Access and Use among Undergraduate Students of Bowen University Iwo, Osun State, Nigeria , 2013 .

[13]  Murat Topaloglu,et al.  The University Students’ Knowledge of Internet Applications and Usage Habits , 2015 .

[14]  Jonathan J. Kandell,et al.  Internet Addiction on Campus: The Vulnerability of College Students , 1998, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[15]  A. Akin Internet Addiction and Depression, Anxiety and Stress , 2011 .

[16]  Mikhail J. Atallah,et al.  Internet Addiction: Metasynthesis of 1996-2006 Quantitative Research , 2009, Cyberpsychology Behav. Soc. Netw..

[17]  Steve Jones The Internet Goes to College: How Students Are Living in the Future with Today's Technology. , 2002 .

[18]  Louis Leung,et al.  Effects of Individual Differences, Awareness-Knowledge, and Acceptance of Internet Addiction as a Health Risk on Willingness to Change Internet Habits , 2012 .

[19]  K. Young Caught in the Net: How to Recognize the Signs of Internet Addiction--and a Winning Strategy for Recovery , 1998 .

[20]  Farzana Shafique,et al.  Internet Use among University Students: A Survey in University of the Punjab, Lahore , 2016 .

[21]  Chloris Qiaolei Jiang Internet addiction among young people in China: Internet connectedness, online gaming and academic performance decrement , 2014, Internet Res..

[22]  Nursel Selver A RESEARCH ON THE PURPOSE OF INTERNET USAGE AND LEARNING VIA INTERNET , 2005 .

[23]  C. Lan,et al.  The predictors of internet addiction behaviours for Taiwanese elementary school students , 2013 .

[24]  Mercy Wangechi Waithaka,et al.  Internet use among university students in Kenya : a case study of the University of Nairobi , 2013 .

[25]  Müjgan Hacıoğlu Deniz,et al.  An Empirical Research on General Internet Usage Patterns of Undergraduate Students , 2015 .

[26]  N. Chong Guan,et al.  Validity of the Malay Version of the Internet Addiction Test , 2015, Asia-Pacific journal of public health.

[27]  D. Kim,et al.  Preliminary study of Internet addiction and cognitive function in adolescents based on IQ tests , 2011, Psychiatry Research.