In the context of youth literature and religious education students' perceptions towards Wattpad application and books (Bağlum sample)

Today's technology is changing rapidly. This change also shows differences in young people's reading and writing experiences. Increasing book reading and writing experiences over the internet is one of the benefits that technology provides us. One of the popular literacy platforms is the Wattpad application.The scope of our research is to try to understand why this application, which is especially preferred by young adolescent people, is so appreciated and preferred, and what kind of experience this application and the books published here have in the world of young people in the context of religion, morality and youth education, through student experiences. The purpose of this research is to investigate the reasons for the extraordinary interest of young people in late childhood and early adolescence in Wattpad books, which they can both write and read. For this reason, the evaluation was made by taking the opinions of fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grade students in official secondary schools affiliated with the Ministry of National Education. Wattpad books most preferred by secondary school students, which are Karantina series, 4N1K series, Nar series and Gözlük series, were examined with content analysis. Our research was conducted with a phenomenological study, which is one of the qualitative research designs. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with secondary school students within the scope of the interview technique study Some of the results of our research are as follows: Based on the participants' answers, it has been determined that the contents of Wattpad books do not comply with our religious, moral and social values and that their literary value is weak.However, it has also been observed that young people love the Wattpad application and books very much due to the reasons of youth wannabe, peer bullying, curiosity and coping with loneliness. The majority of Wattpad books contain alcohol, drug, slang and swear words.Also young people emphasize that they find Turkish world classics valuable, but do not prefer to read them, stating that these books are the stories of old people.Although there is nothing clear based on the belief and moral factor in the pet books, which we examine in terms of our religious morals and values, the behavior of the characters actually portrays an image that does not care about religious values and is mocked.In line with these results, we recommend that families and educators should be informed about the Wattpad application, where most of the users are young people.