A study on prevalence of mobile phone dependence among youth of Jorhat district

Pages: 246-248

Chandrani Borkotoky and Jinamoni Saikia (Department of Human Development and Family Studies

College of Community Science, Assam Agricultural, University, Jorhat, Assam)

India is all set to become the youngest country of the world by 2020, as the average age in India will be 29 and 64% of its population will fall under this age bracket by then. This demographic dividend is expected to have a major positive impact in all sphere of development. But to turn this expectation into reality, maintaining the sound physical and mental well-being of youth should be given highest priority. As we all know, technological and other advancements of today’s modern society possesses a number of threats to the physical and psychological well-being of the youth. Mobile phone though is the technical boon to the mankind, yet it is emerged that excessive use of mobile phones may interfere with the psychological and physical well-being. New researches have shown that excessive use of mobile phones lead to development of symptoms similar to dependence syndrome. The present study was therefore undertaken to assess the prevalence of mobile phone dependence among youth and also attempted to find out whether any association exists between mobile phone dependence and gender as well as duration of mobile phone use. Moreover, the study intends to investigate the self perceived physical discomforts among youth with mobile phone dependence. A total sample of 100 youth in the age group of 18-29 years were drawn randomly from Jorhat, Assam. ‘Mobile Phone Dependence Questionnaire’ developed by Agarwal et al. (2012) was administered to collect the required information. Results of the study indicated that 25 percent of youth have mobile phone dependence. The chi square results of the study also indicated that, gender and mobile phone dependence are independent of each other, whereas a significant association exists between duration of mobile phone use and mobile phone dependence. Further, it was found that majority (80 percent) of youth with Mobile phone dependence experience headache followed by burn and itching of the eyes (68 percent) as well as pain and discomfort in the eye (56 percent).