Can Internet Usage Bring Happiness:A Study on Teenagers?

Modern era is an era of advance technology. Human agency is key, because the technological effects depend upon how people decide to use it. In the contemporary digital world, the millennial can never think of the world without the internet, consequently youngsters invest more efforts to be in touch with their closer ties and thus reap maximum benefits while interacting with others. They feel happy and empowered while living in a virtual world. With these notions in mind the present researcher decided to conduct a study to highlight the level of happiness and internet usage among adolescents and to explore the relationship between these two variables while controlling other confounding variables (such as socio-economic factors) leading to happiness. A purposive sample of 60 adolescents, 13-18 years old both male and female was drawn from schools of Rohtak city, Haryana (India). Their happiness level was measured by Argyle et al. questionnaire of Oxford Happiness and internet usage was assessed by Young's Internet Addiction test. The levels of happiness and internet usage were analyzed by computing descriptive statistics and their correlation was found by using Pearson r. The findings and their implications have been discussed in the paper.