Half of Year Ten Students Addicted To Internet:  According to a new poll, almost half of pupils (49%) in Year 10 feel that they are addicted to the internet, and more than three quarters of students in a similar age range take some form of internet-enabled device to bed – such as a laptop, phone or tablet. {Tweet This}

The survey, which gathered responses from more than 2,200 students in nine schools across England and Scotland, discovered that more than forty percent of girls said they used the web compulsively for socialising. Among the three quarters who take tablets and other web-enabled devices to bed, the majority were using them for social media, or to stream movies or videos from online sources.

Half of Year Ten Students Addicted to Internet

The research concluded that less than a third of pupils who used internet-enabled devices in bed said it was connected to homework tasks set by their school. In addition, those who used these sorts of devices whilst in bed were more likely to report a feeling of addiction to the internet. {Tweet This}

Year 10 was found to be the peak age for feelings of addiction to the internet, with the highest figures for usage of internet-enabled devices coming a year later – with 77% of Year 11 pupils admitting to in-bed-browsing. Across the whole sample, there were some differences in gender – with almost half of girls (46%) saying they felt some form of addiction to the internet, compared to around a third (36%) of boys. Aside from email, the sites most commonly used by teenagers at home were social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Snapchat.{Tweet This}

The majority of respondents to the survey were positive about the internet and their experience of browsing the web. However, there were some voices of concern. One Year 10 boy said that the internet was the first thing he looked at in the morning, and the last thing he viewed at night, whilst another boy, a year older, said that he was often up until the early hours of the morning watching YouTube videos. {Tweet This}

A 2012 study by the London School of Economics showed that British children spend more time online than many children on the European continent, and the survey also suggested that the UK was among the worst countries for elements which indicate a level of internet use which is excessive – such as not seeing friends and family as much, or spending less time on schoolwork. {Tweet This}