High School Teachers’ Awareness of Internet Addiction and Related Factors Among Greek Adolescent Students

In recent years, concerns about internet addiction (IA) have grown. The study aimed to assess to what extent teachers are informed about IA and are familiar with the internet, and to investigate their personal views and their perceptions of students’ daily habits. A cross-sectional survey was conducted from Nov 2023-to-Apr 2024 across public high schools (Day Lyceums) in Crete, Greece, with high school teachers from 42 randomly selected schools completing an original structured questionnaire on internet use. Habits and IA were assessed through regression analysis. Of the 349 high school teachers with a mean age of 47.1 years (±9.1), 65.9% were female. The teachers primarily used the internet for educational purposes (70.5%) or for social media/communication (50.7%). In fourteen questions regarding IA, feeling curiosity when using the internet was the most prevalent response (74.2%), while the mean total IA score (scale 0-100) was low (36.3±14.2).

Discussions with students about rational internet use were more common among female teachers in relation to male (83.9% vs. 73.9%, respectively, p=0.026), those with longer work experience (14.3 years vs. 11.4 years, p=0.014), and those who had a lower mean IA score (34.6 vs. 41.3, p<0.001). In general, teachers who discussed rational internet usage with students had a lower IA score (unstandardized ?=-6.62, p<0.001). High school teachers' perceptions highlight the complex relationship between teachers and internet use.

Our findings underscore the crucial role that teachers play in promoting healthy lifestyles and the need for better training in digital literacy and internet safety practices.