Internet Use and Addiction among Students in Malaysian Public Universities in East Malaysia: Some Empirical Evidence

Abstract

Nowadays, the internet has become an essential part of daily life for most young adult. They mainly use it for education, information searching, entertainment, mail and social interaction purposes. However, extensive use of internet can lead to addiction. This paper presents some preliminary findings on internet use and addiction among Malaysian undergraduate students. A survey questionnaire was used to obtain data from 287 respondents who were business, information technology, and arts majors in four public universities in Sabah and Sarawak, East Malaysia. The findings revealed that facebooking/social networking was the most common internet activity among the respondents, whereas online shopping was the least common activity for them. The study also found that while the majority of the respondents spent a considerable amount of time on the internet, they did not qualify to be regarded as internet addicts. There was evidence of moderate gender effect in terms of internet addiction scores but not with regard to internet experience, frequency, and duration. On the whole, the findings are mixed, suggesting that internet use and addiction among Malaysian university students remains a topic worthy of further investigation.