Internet Use Patterns, Internet Addiction and Its Association With Psychological Self-Esteem Among Bahir Dar University Students, Ethiopia

Background: Internet addiction is a common problem in university students and negatively affects cognitive functioning, leads to poor academic performance and engagement in hazardous activities, and may lead to anxiety and stress. Behavioural addictions operate on a modified principle of the classic addiction model. The problem is not well inspected in Africa including Ethiopia. Objectives: The purpose of this is to investigate internet use patterns, internet addiction and its association with psychological self-esteem among Bahir Dar University students from December to May 2018/2019 in Bahir Dar University Peda Campus, Ethiopia. Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study among 359 Bahir Dar University Peda campus students by using a self-administered questionnaire. The study subjects were selected randomly using a stratified sampling technique. The researcher used both descriptive and inferential statistics to present the study findings. Bi-variate techniques, independent sample T-Test and ANOVA were used for continuous variables; Pearson product moment correlation was used for measuring associations. Results: The results show that 91.3% of university students were using the Internet at the time of data collection from which majority 58.2% of them used Smartphone to access the internet. The majority of student under category of normal 36.7% and moderate (33.7%) level Internet addiction, and there is statistically significant difference between sex at (t=2.0, p = .001) in Internet addiction score. There is a negative relationship between students' level of Internet addiction and psychological self-esteem level. Conclusion: The current study documents a high prevalence of internet addiction among University students. Factors associated with internet addiction were spending more time, having mental distress, playing online games, current that chewing, and current alcohol use. As internet addiction becomes an evident public health problem, carrying out public awareness campaigns may be a fruitful strategy to decrease its prevalence and effect. Besides to this, a collaborative work among stakeholders is important to develop other trendy, adaptive, and sustainable countermeasures