Jaishy Rajon, Maggu Gaurav, Srivastava Mona, Srivastava Manushi, Chaudhury Suprakash, Saldanha Daniel
Department of Psychiatry, Jaipur National University, Institute for Medical Sciences and Research Centre, Jagatpura, Jaipur, Rajasthan, India.
Department of Psychiatry, Institute of Medical Sciences, Banaras Hindu University, Banaras, Uttar Pradesh, India.
Ind Psychiatry J. 2023 Jan-Jun;32(1):113-119. doi: 10.4103/ipj.ipj_61_22. Epub 2022 Dec 9.
The internet has become an essential part of life, and it has both beneficial and detrimental effects. There is a plethora of evidence relating to the effect of internet addiction on psychological health. There is also an unmet need to lay the foundation for the differences in usage and the effects on mental health in regard to the use of the internet for rural and urban students.
The present study was conducted on 200 adolescent subjects belonging to the urban and rural areas around the city of Varanasi to establish the pattern of use of the internet as well as its psychological implications. The participants were evaluated upon the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and General Health Questionnaire-12 (GHQ-12), and information pertaining to socio-demographics as well as accessory information related to internet usage were captured through semi-structured proforma.
The results indicated no significant differences in the pattern of internet usage (mean IAT score) as well as psychological health (mean GHQ-12) between urban and rural youth. There was a significant positive association between the overall severity of internet use with poor psychological health (GHQ-12 score). There was a significant difference in the overall mean age as well as the mean age of onset of internet use between both groups (rural versus urban). This study highlighted an important issue of the digital divide based on gender-wise differences in the pattern in the overall sample.
This study highlighted the important differences in the pattern of internet use among the rural and urban populations with its clinical implication being a need to educate the youth regarding the healthy use of technology.
互联网已成为生活的重要组成部分，它既有有益影响，也有有害影响。有大量关于网络成瘾对心理健康影响的证据。对于农村和城市学生在互联网使用及其对心理健康影响方面的差异，也存在尚未满足的奠定基础的需求。
本研究针对瓦拉纳西市周边城乡地区的200名青少年受试者开展，以确定互联网使用模式及其心理影响。通过互联网成瘾测试（IAT）和一般健康问卷-12（GHQ-12）对参与者进行评估，并通过半结构化表格收集有关社会人口统计学以及与互联网使用相关的辅助信息。
结果表明，城乡青年在互联网使用模式（平均IAT得分）以及心理健康（平均GHQ-12得分）方面没有显著差异。互联网使用的总体严重程度与不良心理健康（GHQ-12得分）之间存在显著正相关。两组（农村与城市）在总体平均年龄以及开始使用互联网的平均年龄方面存在显著差异。本研究突出了基于总体样本中性别差异模式的数字鸿沟这一重要问题。
本研究突出了城乡人群在互联网使用模式上的重要差异，其临床意义在于需要教育青少年健康使用技术。
