International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

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The Prevalence of Internet Addiction among University Students in Malaysia

Open access

Suhaili Arifin, Siti Hajar Kamaruddin, Sofea Cheah Azlan, Rozita Muhamad Nawi, Juliana Arifin, Hamizah Muhammad

Pages 378-388 Received: 27 Sep, 2023 Revised: 23 Oct, 2023 Published Online: 10 Nov, 2023

http://dx.doi.org/10.46886/IJARBSS/v13-i11/7483
Excessive Internet use has led to the emergence of Internet addiction and become an issue of growing concern with negative impacts on university students’ lives nowadays. Therefore, this study has been conducted with the aim to investigate the prevalence of Internet addiction among university students. This study is carried out in one of the public universities in Malaysia involving 810 student respondents selected based on the simple random sampling technique. The level of Internet addiction among the respondents is measured using the Internet Addiction Test (IAT). The study data are analyzed using the frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation. The study finding shows that the majority of the respondents, or 81.5% were always using the Internet. In terms of Internet addiction, 5.4% cases were severe users, 44.7% had moderate addiction, 45.6% showed mild addiction and 4.3% were cases of normal users which had no addiction. The mean of Internet addiction was 50.400 (SD = 18.787). Even though the results indicate that the rate of severe Internet addiction among respondents is still lower than the previous study, it is still necessary to curb the spread of this crisis due to its implication especially toward student’s overall well-being in life.
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