Problematic Internet Use among Adolescents: Role of Gender and Age

Virtual media has taken the world by a storm and the likelihood of having different expectations and experience towards use of the Internet, across genders and different age groups cannot be denied. Its growing popularity among the teenagers is even more evident. In this period of “stress and storm”, there is a tendency to indulge in excessive Internet use which can turn into maladaptive behaviour called Problematic Internet Use (PIU). However, this transition is different for both the genders and also for those in early and late adolescent years. The present study was conducted to find the role of gender and age in PIU among adolescents. A sample of 611 (Boys = 308, Girls = 303) in the age group of 12-14 years (early) and 17-19 years (late) were assessed using PIUQ (Demetrovics et al., 2008). The data was analyzed using t-ratio and the results obtained indicate that PIU among girls and boys differ significantly; whereas, this difference is insignificant among younger and older adolescents. Hence, mental health professionals addressing the issue of PIU among adolescents can frame interventions considering these differences.