Investigation of smartphone addiction of university students in terms of communication skills and perception of loneliness

Students university life corresponds to young adulthood; they need social support and healthy communication. It is thought that young people who have low communication skills and who feel alone, use more mobile phones and increase their smart phone dependencies in order to gain social support, increase their communication skills and remove loneliness. In this research it is aimed to investigate effect of communication skills and perception of loneliness in university students and to determine the degree to which smart phone addiction variable was affected by socio-demographic data obtained from the research. A total of 305 university students (221 male, 84 female) participated in this study. Personal information form, UCLA Loneliness Scale-SF, Smart Phone Addiction Scale-SF and Communication Skills Scale were applied to the participants. Hierarchical regression analysis was applied in order to predict the effect of loneliness perception, communication skills and socio-demographic data on smartphone addiction. According to the results, it was found that age, gender, class and monthly income level had no significant effect on smartphone addiction. It is found that number of daily calls does not have a significant effect on smartphone addiction. As the daily usage time of mobile phones and the number of daily control of the mobile phone increased, it has been found that the smart phone addiction has increased. The effect of loneliness level on smart phone addiction was investigated and a positive significant result was found. The effect of communication skills on smart phone addiction was investigated and no significant relationship was found. Key Words: Smart Phone Addiction, Communication Skills, Loneliness