A study on relationship between internet usage and anxiety among primary school students

Abstract

The main objective of this study was to investigate the difference in internet usage and the anxiety level of Chinese primary school students in Johor Bahru, Malaysia across gender. The study was also carried out to identify the correlation between the internet usage and anxiety level among students. A total number of 396 primary school students from the Chinese primary schools in Johor Bahru, Malaysia have been involved in this study who are sampled by using stratified simple random sampling technique. From the study, it was found that excessive internet usage could occur in students of any gender depending on their patterns, purposes or motivations of using internet. However, male students tended to involve in excessive internet usage. There was no significance difference between the mean of total Internet Addiction Test (IAT) score of male and female students. There was a significance difference between the mean of total and Child Anxiety Symptom Checklist (CASC) score of male and female students. Female students tended to be troubled by the anxiety symptoms. Internet usage could predict the prevalence of anxiety problem although the correlation was weak. The findings of the study are to create awareness among parents, teachers, schools and community regarding the issue of excessive internet usage and anxiety in children, as well as to enrich the current empirical research data and theoretical evidence in Malaysia especially for primary school students.