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The growth of the internet can be understood by the mere fact that more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to YouTube every minute. Which is almost 30,000 hours of newly uploaded content per hour (Statista, 2019). Similar growth can be seen in social media sites like Facebook and chats like WhatsApp. Moreover, with the new advancement in technologies, the internet, smartphone devices, iPad, tablets have become an integral part of everyone's life be it students, teachers, businessmen, government officials. India's internet penetration has reached 483 million (2018) an increase of 10.5% from 2017 (Statista, 2020). As per the Statista, 2020 report, India has the second-highest number of internet users after China. The internet has been a part of our lives for a couple of decades; however, the biggest shift came around a few years back when mobile data became cheap enough to be affordable to the lower middle class and lower class of the population (Jeffery, 2013). internet with the emergence of social media sites, chat platforms, WhatsApp, YouTube led to the boom in the data world. Consequently, the number of people availing of these services rose, and with the arrival of free internet, the number of people using smartphones and mobile data increased to such an extent that now everyone has the data and mobile facility (Vaidya & Pathak, 2016).
Although cheap and easy mobile internet comes with great benefits, the excessive usage of the same can have a dreadful effect on the lives of the people especially the youth of the country. The number of youth percentage using the internet and smartphone rose to 49% (WhatsApp revenue and usage statistics report, 2020). Considering the current demographic trend in India, the youth are leading in the usage of such technologies (Kumar & Rajpal, 2018). Among these youths, some are students while some are working professionals. Moreover, there has been a myriad of studies on the benefits of the internet and new technologies but very few studies have explained the negative impact of the internet and other new technologies on their academic performance (Durak, 2019). With the benefits of internet penetration, there seems to be a rise in the threat from the excessive use of the internet, especially among the students. Excessive use of the internet and internet devices causes addiction which affects negatively. In India, there are at least 24.6% of adolescents have an internet addiction (Preksha & Maheshwari, 2018; Sharma, 2016). In the past few years, internet use has increased many folds so much so that there is a rising threat of students getting addicted to the internet.
Some studies have stated the negative impact of the internet on student performance (Shambare, Rugimbana, & Zhowa, 2012) but not many have delved into details as to what are the different ways in which the internet disrupts the academic performance of the students in India. According to Beard and Wolf (2011) - internet addiction can be defined as “Overuse of the internet leading to impairment of an individual's mental, emotional and psychological states as well as their scholastic, occupational and social interactions”. The aim of the study is to understand the level of addiction in students as well as the impact of internet addiction aspects like “emotional and cognitive preoccupation of the internet” and “loss of control and interference with daily life” on students' academic engagement.