Descripción

The present study was descriptive, non-experimental cross-sectional, with the aims of characterizing the degree of internet use in students belonging to the Systems Engineering program of a private university in southwestern Colombia, taking as a sample 129 students, to whom were applied the Internet Addiction Test and a questionnaire of usage habits from Internet. The students accessed the internet every day for over 9 hours, on Saturdays, during the evening, in their houses, and on their smartphones and the use of social networks prevailed. 75 percent showed controlled internet use and 25 percent suffered frequent problems using it. In conclusion, controlled internet use was prevalent, however, there was a higher rate in the problematic use in comparison with other studies carried out in Colombian university students, point which requires the design of a primary prevention strategy that involves the articulation of different services.