Internet Usage among University Students of Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal: Challenges and Attitudes

Abstract

Nowadays there is a radical change in the way how information is shared as well as networking and socializing take place in every society. No doubt that the internet has turned out to be a powerful tool for communication purposes, to exchange ideas and has become the backbone of the information economy. The present paper analyses the challenges and attitudes of the post graduate students from different faculties towards internet usage based on primary data from PaschimMedinipur district of West Bengal for the year 2021-22. It also explores the factors behind hours of internet usage for low, medium and high category internet users i.e. to get the internet usage specific determinants using Multinomial logit regression analysis. The result indicates a positive attitude towards Internet for all students considered. Few students’ internet usage pattern can be considered as a move towards an addictive attitude. Above 90% students of all streams used internet for academic purpose. All stream students generally use their own smartphone and personal computer for accessing the internet. Network problem and data costs are some of the challenges the students are facing. Using mlogitmodel it is found that the determinants for diverse categories of internet users are not same. Nature of mother's job and network issue are the common variables found to affecthigh and low category internet users.