Internet Addiction, Depression, Anxiety, and Stress among Young adults: a Cross-Sectional Study

Internet addiction (IA) prevalence has been found to increase along with rising internet use, with young adults being more susceptible than anybody else. Internet addiction can be described as an impulse control disorder characterized by excessive or poorly controlled preoccupations, urges, or behaviours regarding computer use and internet access that lead to impairment or distress. Various studies reported internet addiction to be positively correlated with stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Among these studies, some found that depressive symptoms predicted internet addiction or were at risk of engaging in internet addiction. The majority of studies on internet addiction and its link to depression, anxiety, and stress among Indian young adults have been conducted on students studying medicine, dentistry, nursing, or engineering, with very few studies done on young adults enrolled in other courses offered in India. Therefore, the current study's objective is to assess the relationship between young adults' internet addiction and their levels of stress, anxiety, and depression. Convenience sampling was used to select 150 participants (63 males and 87 women) between the ages of 18 to 25 for this cross-sectional study. Internet Addiction Test (IAT), Depression, Anxiety, Stress Scale-21 (DASS-21) was administered online through Google forms to assess internet addiction and depression, anxiety, and stress respectively. To see the gender difference on the above variables”t” test and correlation coefficient was used for assessing the relationship among the variables significant gender differences was found on Internet Addiction for the study and IA was found strongly related with Stress, Depression and Anxiety of the Participants.