Differences in Internet usage patterns with Stress and Anxiety among college students

Stress and Anxiety negatively affect mental health and can lead a number of debilitating impacts to overall health and well being. In the recent past, adolescents are becoming increasingly afflicted with Stress and Anxiety. In this paper, we report our findings on a six-week study of 70 students at a college campus on associations between Stress and Anxiety with respect to Internet usage of students. Using Cisco NetFlow records, on-campus Internet usage of students was collected continuously and unobtrusively in a privacy-preserving manner. Using the Depression Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS), students were separated based on normal scores and high scores separately for both Anxiety and Stress. Mann-Whitney U-tests revealed that there exists statistically significant differences in the mean values between the groups from the perspective of several Internet usage features. Students with high stress scores exhibit decreased chat (octets, packets, duration), total duration, and streaming duration compared to the students with normal stress scores. Students with high anxiety scores showed an increased mail duration and decreased peer-to-peer duration compared with students with normal anxiety scores. The methods and results of this paper provide a framework for conducting similar studies at universities with the goal of aiding student mental health.