Cyber Security and its Relation with Motives of Using Internet among College Students in Chennai, India

The cyber world has become an integral part of human life. Being secured in the cyber space has become a major issue. In today’s dynamic environment, cyber security has become vital for young children and adolescents. Motives of using the internet has also becomes very important as it helps the students identify what sort of information can be shared and with whom. The present study intends to find out the relationship between Cyber security and Motives of Using the Internet among college students in Chennai with respect to gender, course of study and stream of study. It is to be noted that there are no studies that analyse the relationship between cyber security and motives of using internet. It is found that cyber security and motives of using internet are significantly and positively correlated; with a significant difference shown in gender where, male students have an upper hand in cyber security than female students and female students have high motives of using internet than their male counterparts. The students who belong to the arts stream have more cyber security than students who belong to science and professional streams while there is no difference in the motives of using internet among students with respect to stream of study. It is important to note that the female students have less cyber security but have high motives of using the internet than the male students. Women are more vulnerable to cyber threats these days and hence it is essential to inculcate proper awareness and orientation on cyber security and imbibe necessary security behaviour and practices so that they can safeguard themselves on the cyber space.