The relationship between sports sciences faculty students' motivation to participate in physical activities and social media addiction

Purpose: This research was conducted to examine the relationship between the motivation of students of the Faculty of Sports Sciences to participate in physical activities and social media addiction. Materials and Methods: A total of 425 students, 253 female and 172 male, studying at Aydın Adnan Menderes University, Faculty of Sports Sciences, participated in the study. Data were collected using Google Form using the Personal Information Form prepared by the researcher, the Motivation Scale for Participation in Physical Activities developed by Tekkurşun Demir and Cicioğlu (2018), and the Social Media Addiction Scale developed by Günüç (2009) and whose validity and reliability study was conducted by Çömlekçi and Başol (2019). collected in the database. Descriptive statistics, Kruskal Wallis and Mann- Whitney U, correlation test, t test and ANOVA test analysis were used in the analysis of the data. Results: It was determined that %40.5 of the students participating in the research were male and %59.5 were female. Participation in physical activities was significant in the environmental factors sub-dimension of motivation and in the Social Media Addiction Scale according to the variables of the sport branch, weekly free time periods and whether they have any addictions. There appear to be differences. Result: The students participating in the research had high social media addiction and motivation to participate in physical activities. A negative relationship was found between Motivations for Participating in Physical Activities and Social Media Addiction. As a result of the findings of our study, it was concluded that as university students' motivation to participate in physical activities increased, their use of social media decreased. Key Words: Physical activity, Motivation, Sports, Social media, Social media addiction.