Internet Addiction and Mental Health Status of Chinese College Freshmen

A large sample of college freshmen participated in the present online survey and completed two questionnaires, the Internet Addiction Test (IAT) and the University Personality Inventory (UPI). The results showed that among those 3342 students who accomplished both scales, about 25% were rated as problematic internet users and about 7.5% were classified as having severe mental health problems. Gender differences were significant for either the IAT or UPI scores which suggest that male students are more subject to Internet addiction but female students are more subject to severe mental problems which need immediate counseling. Students from different departments differed in their nternet addiction and mental health status. A significant positive correlation was found between participants' Internet addiction and mental health status. Finally, a factor analysis revealed that variations of Internet addiction could be explained by four factors: time management, withdrawal, obsession, and cyberrelationship.