Prevalence and Characteristics of Internet Addiction among University Students in Mauritius

The term “internet addiction” first evoked by Goldberg in 1995 [1], is not a clearly delineated condition with well-defined boundaries. From a survey of the literature, internet addiction encompasses a number of overlapping conditions including addictive use of the internet [2], excessive [3] or compulsive [4] internet use which is problematic [5] or pathological [6] or simply internet activity abuse [7]. It englobes maladaptive patterns of internet use [8] resulting in health risks and causing internet dependency to such an extent that normal activities are disrupted. Whilst some authors believe that the internet intrinsically has addictive potential, others [9] have postulated that the source of addiction is the nature of online activities. With the increased popularity of the internet, people are using this as a medium for activities with potential addictive potential such as online gaming [10], internet gambling [11], online sexual activities [12], for accessing social networking sites [13] and for other leisure-oriented internet activities [14].