Internet addiction or Problematic internet use became a growing social and public health problem, affecting people worldwide (WHO 2015), especially teenagers and university students (Kuss and Lopez-Fernandez 2016) leading to many negative consequences (Lee et al. 2019).
The present study showed that the majority of medical students (76.4%) reported at least often staying online longer than intended. This is quite similar to results reported by Taha et al., 2019 in their study in Qassim University, Saudi Arabia as 70.8% of their medical students reported that staying at least often online longer than intended (Taha et al. 2019). Both studies reported much higher findings than those found by Haque et al., in their study on medical students in a Malaysian medical school as they found only 30.9% of students at least often staying online longer than intended (Haque et al. 2016).
More than 75% of medical students in the current study neglected their household chores to spend more time online at least frequently. This is more than Taha et al. findings from their study in Saudi Arabia (52.7%) (Taha et al. 2019) but these findings are much higher than those of a study done among Malaysian medical students with only 12.7% of students at least often neglected their household chores (Haque et al. 2016) and also more than another study done in Japan (Sato 2006).
The findings of current study on students’ preferences to use internet over interaction with partners, colleagues and friends were higher than findings of another studies conducted in Malaysia, Egypt, Kuwait and India (Al-Menayes 2015, Saied et al. 2016and Patil et al. 2017).
The majority of medical students in the present study received complaints from others because of spending long time using internet which is much higher than what was found by Haque et al. and Taha et al. as they found only one quarter of their medical students got complaints (Haque et al. 2016and Taha et al. 2019).
The current study reported that 59.8% of medical students stated at least often their academic grades and their productivity were affected and 53.4% of them reported at least often become defensive when anyone asks you what you do online. Our results are higher than those of Taha et al., 2019 study (31.6% of medical students reported that internet use at least often affected their academic performance and 33.4% of them at least often became defensive) (Taha et al. 2019). However, Haque et al., found much lower negative affection of academic performance of their medical students as only 12.1% of students reported that their academic performance was at least often affected by internet use (Haque et al. 2016).
Regarding sleep, 64.1% of the medical students in the current study at least often lost night sleep because of late use of internet which is higher than those found by Taha et al. in their study (42.6%) (Taha et al. 2019), while only 12.8% was found by Haque et al. 2016.
Moreover, the majority of our medical students (86.6%) were found at least often depressed or moody when they were offline. This is higher than that found by Taha et al., 2019 as 60.7% of their included medical students felt at least frequently depressed when they are offline (Taha et al. 2019). These results were in line with findings from other studies done in Korea and India (Whang et al. 2003and Srijampana et al. 2014).
In contrary only 9.4% of students in the Malaysian study were found at least often depressed or moody when they were offline (Haque et al. 2016).
Regarding the non-medical students, the present study found that 61.1% of them stay online longer than intended at least often, which was less than that found by Salubi et al. in their study in South African universities, as they found 71.3% of undergraduate students stay, at least often, on internet longer than intended (Salubi et al. 2018).
In contrary to our findings, Salubi et al. found that only 32.3% of South African college students enjoyed excitement of using internet more than spending time with their friends which was much lower than our findings (64.1%) (Salubi et al. 2018).
Dissimilar to our results as we found only 44% of non-medical students often/always lost sleep on using internet late, Salubi et al., found that 71% of their college students often/always lost sleep (Salubi et al. 2018).
The current study found that more than half of the included medical students suffered from severe internet addiction and 43.4% of them were possible addicts. High prevalence of severe internet addiction may be attributed to easy access to internet as most people nowadays can access to internet through their personal mobiles and also may be attributed to the occurrence of COVID-19 pandemic which increase the need to use internet to continuously check for its news, prevalence and mortality rates and also may be due to lockdown measures and panic states that affect most people and urge them to overuse internet as an escaping mechanism.
These results are in contrary with Taha et al. findings of their study as they found only 12.4% of medical students were severely addicted to internet while 57.9% of them were possible addicts (Taha et al. 2019). Moreover, Srijampana et al., in their study in India found that only 0.4% of medical students were severe addicts to internet and 11.8% of them were possible addicts (Srijampana et al. 2014).
Furthermore, Haque et al. in their Malaysian study didn’t found any of their students was severely addicted to internet and only 32% of them experienced occasional or frequent problems caused by their Internet use as they were possible addicts (Haque et al. 2016).
On comparing medical and non-medical students, the present study found that the medical students were severe internet addicts (51.7%) more than the non-medical ones (11.3%) with statistically significant difference between them. This is in contrary with Soni et al., findings, as they found that medical students are less than students in faculty of engineering in internet addiction (2.5% of medical students and 12.5% of engineering students were severe internet addicts). However, they found that a similar percent of students in faculty of commerce (2.5%) and none of students in faculty of art were severe internet addicts (Soni et al. 2020).
Regarding the gender differences in internet addiction, the present study found that female medical students were severely addicted to internet more than males (71.5% of the severe internet addicts were females compared to 28.5% were males), which is consistent with findings of Taha et al. in their study (Taha et al. 2019).
These findings were in contrary to results of study done in Tanzania by Mboya et al., as they found that males were internet addicts more than females (Mboya et al. 2020) and also in contrary with Soni et al. findings from their study in Raipur, India as they found that prevalence of internet addiction among medical students was more among males tan females (22.5% of males were moderate internet addicts compared to only 7.5% of females while 2.5% of males were severe addicts and non of females were severe addicts) (Soni et al. 2020).
Also, our findings were different from Srijampana et al., results as they found that males and females were equally suffered from internet without any difference (Srijampana et al. 2014).
Regarding non-medical students; the present study also found that female students were more addicted to internet than male ones. This is in contrary with Soni et al. results in their study on arts, commerce and engineering students as they found that male students in these 3 colleges were addicted to internet more tan female students (Soni et al. 2020).
Recommendations:
We recommend developing appropriate preventive, awareness and intervention strategies to stop this excessive use of internet among university students and protect their physical and mental health from its harmful consequences. Students must be encouraged to use other recreational activities to help them to cope more appropriately with stress, panic and isolation caused by such COVID-19 pandemic events.