Examination of adolescents with different levels of internet addiction in terms of psychological needs according to gender, social anxieties and perception of parental attitudes

The purpose of this study is to reveal about whether or not adolescents' psychological needs according to gender, social anxieties and perception of parental attitudes vary with high and low levels of internet addiction and adolescents' views about the use of the internet. The research is conducted with a survey on 644 high school students, 344 girls and 300 boys who attend 9th, 10th and 11th grades. "Scale of Internet Addiction" (Young, 1996), "Scale of Instinctual Psychological Needs" (Deci and Ryan, 2000), "Scale of Social Avoidance and Distress" (Watson and Friend, 1969) and "Scale of Parental Attitude" (Sümer and Güngör, 1999) are used to obtain data for the research. Additionally, seven students who scored high and eight students who scored low in the "Scale of Internet Addiction" were interviewed using "Semi-Structured Interview Form" developed by the researcher. In the research, whether the psychological needs according to gender, social anxiety levels and perception of parental attitute in different levels of internet addict adolescents vary in a significant degree is examined using two factor variance analysis. The data obtained from high and low level internet addict adolescents by semi-structured interview is used for context analysis. The research showed that adolescents' internet addiction levels and psyhcological needs according to gender (relationship, competence, autonomy) and perception of parental attitudes (acceptance/attention and strict supervision/control) did not differ in a significant degree but there was a differentiation from the point of internet addiction level. Adolescents with low levels of addiction had more autonomy, competence and relationship needs compared to adolescents with high levels of addiction. Moreover, adolescents with low levels of addiction perceived their parents to be more accepting/attending while adolescents with high levels of addiction perceived their parents to be authoritarian. According to their internet addiction levels and gender, there was also significant difference in the social anxiety levels of adolescents. Adolescent girls with low levels of addiction compared to adolescent girls with high levels of addiction and adolescent boys with high levels of addiction compared to adolescent boys with low levels of addiction was observed to be socially more anxious. According to the results of the analysis of interview data, adolescents with high levels of internet addiction were observed to use the internet in earlier ages and more frequently, increasing the time they spend on the internet correspondingly to the technological improvements compared to adolescents with low levels of addiction. Also, while adolescents with high levels of internet addiction was use the internet for social networking and gaming websites, adolescents with low levels of addiction used the internet for doing homework and research. It was observed that adolescents with high levels of addiction had trouble limiting the time they spend and controlling their behaviour, feeling angry and bored when they are not on the internet. Furthermore, they could not detach from the internet in social occasions they encounter. On the other hand, adolescents with low levels of addiction were observed to be better able to restrain themselves about internet and had hobbies and pursuits beside the internet.