Addiction to technological gadgets and its impact on health and lifestyle: a study on college students

Abstract

In the present era the introduction of modern technological gadgets has captured the attention of global population. The dependency of people on these technological gadgets and services provided by these has reached at such level that, without these, they can’t think a step forward in the direction of their growth. The degree of dependency is leading to addiction of the tech-devices and services. Youth is the most vulnerable group among the population to be addicted to technology. The study was designed to examine the use of tech-devices by youth i.e. the time spent with the gadgets, the purposes behind use, and its impacts on mental health and life style. Using structured questionnaire, unstructured interviews and observation by the researcher, primary data were collected from 150 respondents of NIT, Rourkela. Findings of the study showed that most of the young respondents spend a large amount of their time with their tech-gadgets and services provided by them. The purposes of use in most cases are pleasure driven rather than necessity driven. Again, it reveals that addiction to tech-devices has many negative impacts on the aspects relating to mental health of the respondents and has become a causal factor in the change of life style of young participants. The results are interpreted based on the current theories and implications for future are pointed out.