Internet Addiction, its consequences on Life Satisfaction and Self-Esteem among Adolescentse | P 55-60

Dikshita Choudhury and Manidipa Baruah
Gauhati University, Assam

Pages: 55 – 60

Emotional abuse has always been very prevalent in developing countries like India where most of such cases are not even reported. Thus, the present study is to explore GenZ college students’ (boys and girls) perception of emotional abuse in their school life and to know about their awareness of the same. Data was collected from 10 undergraduates (18-21 years, 5 boys, and 5 girls) through structured interviews. Qualitative analysis is done by coding, grouping into themes, and then further analytical explanation. Percentage Analysis was done based on the results found. The result led us to understand some basic themes – Awareness of Emotional Abuse, Awareness of Emotionally abused person in school, Direct exposure to emotional abuse, symptoms of Emotional abuse, vulnerable age group to emotional abuse, causal factors of emotional abuse, criminality, and severity of emotional abuse. It can be concluded that the participants have a great extent of awareness of emotional abuse though the majority of girls are unable to perceive it completely as a crime in spite of experiencing it, probably due to various social learning and related societal factors.. Keywords: Emotional abuse, School life, GenZ, College students, AwarenessThis research explored the consequences of Internet Addiction on Life Satisfaction and Self Esteem among adolescents. With the advent of digital technology, school going children and adolescents have had tremendous exposure to digital screens and the internet. Though there are reaping benefits of digitalization that makes our lives easier, at the same time it is creating a major dependency on it which may lead to various issues among the new generation. Therefore the study included adolescents in the age range of 14-18 years (N = 134). The Internet Addiction Scale by Kimberley Young was used to screen out internet addicts. Out of 134 participants, 86 adolescents were selected for the study as they had high levels of addiction. The sampling technique used was snowball and convenience sampling and the research design of the study used was correlation research design. The obtained addiction scores of 86 participants were correlated with their corresponding scores on Satisfaction with Diener Life Scale, and The Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. To derive the results, Pearson’s Product Moment Correlation was used. The results showed a significant negative correlation between Internet Addiction and SWLS (r= -0.10) and Self Esteem (r= -0.06). Hence, it can be concluded that digital addicts tend to find their life less pleasurable and therefore seek stimulation from the virtual world. This automatically reduces their communication skills and issues with esteem arise.

Keywords: Internet Addiction, Life Satisfaction, Self Esteem, Adolescents

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *