Research Paper The International Journal of Indian Psychology ISSN 2348-5396 (e) | ISSN: 2349-3429 (p) Volume 6, Issue 4, DIP: 18.01.081/20180604 DOI: 10.25215/0604.081 http://www.ijip.in | October-December, 2018 © 2018 D'Souza, L; licensee IJIP. This is an Open Access Research distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any Medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Extent of Instagram Addiction among College Students in Mysuru City: Influence of Select Demographic Factors Lancy D’Souza 1 * ABSTRACT Recently the utilization of social networking applications is on the rise among college students. The present study attempts to find out the prevalence of Instagram addiction among college students studying in Mysuru city. The sample consisted of a total of 1342 college students of which 672 were male students and 670 were female students studying in Arts, Commerce/management and science courses in various colleges of Mysuru city. The students completed Test for Instagram addiction (TIA) developed by D’Souza, Samyukta and Bivera (2018) in one session. Test for Instagram addiction measured addiction in 6 factors– Lack of control, Disengagement, Escapism, Health and interpersonal troubles, Excessive use and Obsession. The data were analysed using Independent samples tests to find out the extent of usage of Instagram by male and female students and chi-square tests were done to find out the association between levels of Instagram addiction and select demographic factors. Results revealed that on an average the number of hours spent on Instagram during weekdays and weekends were 3.40 and 3.13 hours respectively, female students spent more time Instagram. It was found that an alarming 58.6% of the sample selected was addict prone to Instagram, and 3.9% of the sample studied was definitely addicts. Female students had higher addiction towards Instagram than male students. Students from rural and urban area were more addicted to Instagram than students from semi-urban areas. Students pursuing arts course were more addicted to Instagram than students pursuing science or commerce/management Keywords: Instagram Addiction, College Students Today Internet has taken over all the spheres of Individual lives. Excessive dependency on Internet leads to Internet addiction, may lead to several complications. One of the major effects of Internet addiction is reduction in the concentration, leads to reduced focus, which in turn affects the academic status of the students (Keepers, 1990). According to Davis (2001) and Young and Rodgers (1998), addiction towards internet, which is also explained as pathological internet usage, is characterized as an individual’s failure to control his or her utilization of the Internet, which in the long run causes mental, social, academic as well as in work environment in an individual’s life. Addiction towards internet is an illumination for unmanageable, damaging utilization of this innovation and it is a warning sign that an individual is experiencing issues in controlling his or her internet use (Beard, 2002). An 1 (Associate Professor of Psychology, Maharaja’s College, University of Mysore, Mysore, India) *Responding Author Received: November 10, 2018; Revision Received: December 19, 2018; Accepted: December 26, 2018