Digital Media Usage and Prevalence of Internet Addiction among Undergraduate Students in South Africa

Internet and digital media for educational purposes have significantly improved knowledge creation. The Internet has proven itself to be a valuable resource in the enhancement of knowledge production and dissemination. The purpose of the study was to establish how excessive non-academic use of the Internet detrimentally affects undergraduate students’ daily lives. Using survey design, a total of 390 University undergraduate students comprising mainly adolescents/ young adults were selected using stratified random sampling at two South African universities, namely Fort Hare and Nelson Mandela. Data were collected using the Modified Internet Addiction Test for Undergraduates (MIATU), a modification of Internet Addiction Test (IAT) questionnaire. 282 (72.3%) use of the respondents indicated that they make use of the Internet daily with 34.8% spending more than 10 hours. More than 60% have access to at least two electronic devices. Most of the respondents stayed online longer than intended (x 2.88), slept less at night due to Internet use (x 2.63) and hence spent less time studying owing to Internet surfing (x 2.27). Furthermore, the amount of time spent on the Internet had a significant relationship with the level of influence the use of the Internet had on respondents (B = 0.250, t = 4.850, p < 0.05). The findings are indications that the excessive amount of time spent on the Internet served as a distraction from school work, a situation that put students at a disadvantage in as far as academic productivity was involved. These findings clearly suggest that the uncontrolled use of new media is both a hazard and a potential danger to academic productivity.