Examining the Internet Addiction Levels of High School Senior Students

Abstract

In the present study, the internet addiction status of high school senior students in Yeşilyurt county of Malatya was analyzed and examined in terms of gender variable. The study population consisted of 3442 senior students who were studying at 37 high schools in state schools in Yeşilyurt County of the city of Malatya in 2016-2017 academic year. The sampling of the study consisted of 606 students selected with the Random Sampling Method from among 17 high schools. The model of the study was the Survey Model. For the purpose of determining the internet addiction levels of the students, the “Internet Addiction Scale”, which was developed by Gunuc (2009) was used. This scale consists of sub-dimensions like “Deprivation”, “Difficulty in Control”, “Disruption in Functionality”, and “Social Isolation”. In analyzing the data of the study, arithmetic average ( , frequency (f), standard deviation (sd), k-means clustering method and t-test were used. In brief, the following results were received in the present study: out of the 606 senior high school students, 85 (14,1%) were in the Addicted Group, 258 (42,6%) were in the Risk Group and 262 (43,3%) were in the Non-Addicted Group. When these results were analyzed it was determined that the majority of the students who constituted the sampling group of the study were in the Non-Addicted Group (43,3%). A significant differentiation was detected between the internet addiction scores of the students according to the gender variable in favor of the male students.