INSTAGRAM ADDICTION AMONG STUDENTS PURSUING PARAMEDICAL AND NON-PROFESSIONAL COURSES: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

The current generation has easy and cheap access to internet and the various applications that it offers. There have been a few applications which stand out due to the various negative effects it has on the individuals such as Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Tinder, etc. Instagram is one of the most recent social networking application that has taken over many other social networking applications due to its versatility in communications. The present study is conducted to discuss and compare the extent of Instagram addiction among students who are pursuing paramedical courses and non-professional courses.  The sample consisted of 284students (134 students from paramedical courses and 150 students from non-professional courses).  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 & interpersonal troubles, Excessive use and Obsession. Chi-square tests were applied to find out the difference between groups of frequencies of various levels of Instagram addiction, Cramer’s V tests were applied to find out the association between levels of Instagram addiction and student groups, gender, domicile and stay. Results revealed that of the selected sample, 11.6% of them were definitely addicts, 54.2% of them were prone for addiction, 28.5% of them were average users, 5.3% of them used on a low and remaining 0.4% of them had no/minimal addiction towards Instagram. Students pursuing paramedical courses used more Instagram than students pursuing non-professional courses during weekdays and weekends. Students pursuing paramedical courses were found to be more addicted to Instagram than students pursuing non-professional courses, whereas students pursuing non-professional courses were more addicts prone. Gender, domicile and stay of the students did not have significant influence over their Instagram addiction.