THE PREVALENCE OF TECHNOLOGY (INTERNET) ADDICTION AMONG THE SCHOOL GOING ADOLESCENTS (10-19 YEARS) - A SCHOOL BASED CROSS SECTIONAL STUDY

Introduction: Adolescence (10–19 years) represents the transition between childhood and adulthood; the expectations and choices made during adolescence have a significant impact not only on current health practices and well-being but also on their health as adults. Similar to most addictive behaviors, adolescents are more vulnerable to technology addiction because of its easy availability, their limited capacity for self-regulation and increased risk of peer pressure and experimentation.1-3 Excessive use of the Technology has become one of the leading challenges of the modern society and causes both physical and mental impairment in adolescents. Adolescents with technology addiction often have physical symptoms, social skills deficit, sleeping disorders and sedentary behaviors forming important risk factors for non-communicable diseases (NCDs)3,4 and have deleterious effects on their family, social, academic or work environments.5-7 Technology addiction is defined as a psychological state of dependency on the use of a technology to such a degree that the following typical behavioral addiction symptoms may arise1:1) salience-the technology dominates a user’s thoughts and behaviors; 2) withdrawal-negative emotions arise if a person cannot use the technology; 3) conflict-the use of the technology conflicts with other tasks, which impairs normal functioning; 4) relapse and reinstatement-a user is unable to voluntarily reduce the use of the technology; 5) tolerance-a person has to use the technology to a larger extent to produce thrill; and 6) mood modification-using the technology offers thrill and relief, and results in mood changes.8 Objectives of the study was to determine the prevalence of technology (internet) addiction among school going adolescents (10-19 years). Method of study: This school based cross-sectional observational study was carried out at selected school settings from February 2023 to November 2023 in city of Jamnagar, Gujarat. 429 students from 10 to 19 years were enrolled after their and parental informed consent in the study. They were screened for technology addiction by using Internet addiction test-Adolescent scale. The study also examined the comparison among various adolescent stages and between public and private schools students and also provided knowledge on health impacts due to internet addiction. Result: The present study included total of 429 students of which 216 were from public and 213 students were from private schools. Considering gender distribution 56% were males and 44% were females. The mean age of study population was 14.5 years. 173, 188 and 68 students belonged to early, middle and late adolescent stage groups respectively. Out of 216 public school students 85, 101 and 30 were early, middle and late adolescents and out of 213 private schools students 88, 87 and 38 were early, middle and late adolescents. Considering Internet Addiction, 42% had mild, 27.5% had moderate and 0.5% had severe addiction. Majority had mild internet addiction. Maximum mild addiction was in early Adolescents while severe addiction seen more in late adolescents (1.5%). Mild and moderate internet addiction was more among public school students. While severe addiction was more in private school students. Mild Addiction was more in females while moderate addiction was more in males. All physical problems were more in severe internet addiction. The mean time of physical activity was 37 minutes. Maximum physical activities were done by Early adolescents. Instagram is most common application used and the most common purpose of application use was entertainment. Mean duration of using technology was 1.9 hours. 218 (50.8%) students use internet during bed time while use of technology by parents was seen in 247 students (57.6%). Conclusion: The study evaluated technology(internet) addiction among 429 students. 70% had internet addiction. Males and private school students were more addicted to technology (p value->0.05). All physical problems were associated with addiction (p value-<0.05). Thus this study throws light on an important growing health issue affecting adolescents that deserves serious attention from parents, schools, and policymakers and follow treatment techniques for Internet addiction.