Relationship between Academic Stress and Internet Addiction among College Students

Abstract

The present study assesses the relationship between the academic stress and internet addiction among college students studying in Mysuru city. Academic stress inventory (Lin & Chen, 2009) and Internet addiction test-IAT (Young, 1998) were administered to a sample of 120 college students. Academic stress of students was measured in 7 domains and internet addiction in 6 domains. Data were subjected to product moment correlation and stepwise multiple regression to find out the relationship between stress and addiction, including the domains of internet addiction which predict stress. Results revealed that a  large majority of the students had moderate to high levels of internet addiction and academic stress.  Almost all the domains of internet addiction were significantly and positively correlated with the domains of stress. Further, stepwise multiple regression revealed that out of the seven domains of stress, only Peer stress was the major predictor of stress. Strategies for decreasing the extent of stress and addiction among students have been delineated.