Abstract
The process of informatization and computerization in the modern society can influence health of the youth. Objective to investigate Internet addiction (IA) among university students of 3 countries: Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine. Methods Problematic Internet Use (PIU) indices were calculated according to 4 scales: social comfort, loneliness, distraction, and impulsiveness. The total number of respondents was 578. We used Student's t‐test, Spearmen's rank correlation coefficient, and the Cronbach alpha coefficient to demonstrate the reliability of our tests. The majority of both male and female students reported using the Internet 5 or more times a week. We detected a statistically significant difference between men and women according to the latter type of activity, where females were more likely to use the Internet for entertainment than males (p<0.05). Only 5.1% of all students had a feeling of euphoria while being on‐line while 40.2% had that feeling only sometimes. There was no significant difference according to gender (p<0.05). We compared the separate categories of the PIU between the students of the universities by gender. Data showed statistically significant differences among men in three out of four categories. The high value of the Spearman rank correlation coefficient testifies about the inverse association connection between the number of answers and their rank. We found higher PIU indices among Kazakhstani students in the category of Social Comfort, in comparison with the students of the Uzbekistani with high PIU indices in the category of Diminished Impulse Control.