Impact of Internet Addiction and Short Form Videos on Attention Span

Abstract

Due to increased usage of the digital medium by university students, there is growing concern about the effect that could have been caused on their cognitive processes like the span of attention. This study was conducted to examine the impact of internet addiction and short form videos on attention span among university students. The data was collected from 600 university students using the Internet addiction Questionnaire (IAQ), Short Form Video Addiction, and the already designed experiment for measuring the attention span. Results indicated a significant positive association between internet addiction and short-form video addiction. Attention span was found to be not significantly associated with internet addiction and short-form video addiction. Results also revealed gender differences in internet addiction where males are more addicted to internet. This research has demonstrated the increasing need to explore the phenomenon of digital addiction in relation to university students and has added valuable knowledge to the discipline of digital psychology using a non-Western sample. Further studies are encouraged to adopt longitudinal and experimental methodologies in order to provide more insight into the problem.