Television addiction: Implication for enhancing media literacy for healthy use of technology

Abstract

Background: Television viewership is being seen as a modality of mood elevator but do leads to excessive watching of available programs. It leads to neglect of other day-to-day demands of life. The present study explored the television addiction as well as its relationship with psychosocial variables. Materials and Methods: Two thousand seven hundred and fifty-five participants (1392 males and 1363 females) in the age group of 18–65 years were approached for the administration of schedule in the house-to-house survey for screening television viewership from urban localities. Results: The study document the presence of television addiction among 79/2755 (2.9%; 3.3% males, 2.4% females). The significant difference was seen in relation to marital status, higher among the unmarried, widowed and divorced group. TV addiction had a significant negative relationship with age and years of marriage, whereas the positive relationship with a number of members in the house. Conclusions: It has implication for evolving intervention program for enhancing the media literacy of the users.

Keywords

• Addiction
• literacy
• television