The Effectiveness of School-Based Sahaja Yoga Meditation in Dealing with Problematic Internet Use Among Adolescents...

In the era of globalization, evolving technologies have become integral to modern life. With the normalization of unrestricted internet access, many young people face harmful impacts from excessive use, which can affect their self-esteem. Adaptive coping strategies may mitigate these effects. The present study examined the effectiveness of the Sahaja Yoga Meditation (SYM) program for improving self-esteem and adaptive coping that may reduce problematic internet use and maladaptive coping. We used a purposive sampling technique to select participants from among 119 students from 9th to 11th grades in a government school in northern India. The study followed a quasiexperimental research design with a pre-post test and a waitlist control group. The experimental group underwent a 12-week SYM program with five 40-minute sessions each week. The experimental group (n = 56) included 26 boys and 30 girls with a mean age of 13.00 ± 1.46. The waitlist control group (n = 63) included 30 boys and 33 girls with a mean age of 13.67 ± 1.92. The experimental group demonstrated statistically significant improvements in self-esteem and adaptive coping and reductions in problematic internet use and maladaptive coping (p < 0.01), with large within-group effect sizes. These findings provide evidence for the efficacy of the SYM intervention, with apparent interaction effects indicating differential gains over the waitlist control group. SYM may hold potential as a scalable approach to support self-esteem, encourage adaptive coping strategies, and reduce problematic internet use among adolescents. However, as the study only examined associations rather than causal effects, further research with more robust designs is required before clinical recommendations can be made.