A Comparative Study of Instagram Addiction among Students Pursuing Dental and Speech & Hearing courses

Abstract

This study attempted to compare the extent of Instagram addiction among students pursuing dental and speech and hearing courses.  The sample consisted of 207students (97 students from dental and 110 students from speech and hearing courses) comprising of 43 male and 164 female students.  The students completed Test for Instagram addiction (TIA) developed by D’Souza, Samyukta and Bivera (2018) in one session. Test for Instagram addiction measured addiction in 6 factors– Lack of control, Disengagement, Escapism, Health and interpersonal troubles, Excessive use and Obsession. Chi-square tests were applied to find out the association between levels of Instagram addiction and student groups, gender, domicile and stay. Results revealed of the selected sample, 1.9% of them were definitely addicts, 10.1% of them were prone for addiction, 31.4% of them were average users, 52.2% of them used on a low and remaining 4.3% of them had no/minimal addiction towards Instagram. Students pursuing dental courses were found to be more addicted to Instagram than students pursuing speech and hearing courses, whereas addiction proneness was found to be more for speech and hearing students. Gender, domicile and stay of the students studied did not have significant influence over extent of Instagram addiction. Students pursuing dental and speech and hearing courses did not differ in their extent of usage of Instagram during week days and weekends.