Zohra Kahtoon and Rajvir Kaur
Akal University, Talwandi Sabo, Bathinda Punjab.
Pages: ,427-434
Adolescents in present society are exposed to and engaged with information and
communication technology from an early age, and these devices have become
indispensable to their daily lives. The present paper studies Internet usage levels among
adolescents based on gender and further assesses the association between internet
usage and mental well-being among adolescents. The sample for the study is 600
randomly selected 13 to 15-year-old school-going students from the govt and private
schools of three districts of Punjab (Bathinda, Mansa and Sangrur) in equal proportion.
The Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale by WEMWBS was employed to
evaluate participants’ mental well-being levels. Additionally, the Internet Usage Scale
by Kaur and Saini was utilised to gauge the extent of Internet usage among the
participants. An important concern in this field of research is the relationship between
the Internet and adolescents’ psychological well-being. According to the research
findings, it was observed that adolescents who reported using the internet more
frequently also displayed lower scores in terms of mental health. The present study’s
findings also confirm a significant negative association (-.64) between internet usage
and the mental well-being of adolescents. Further, the study also highlights that gender
significantly impacts adolescent Internet usage scores