Investigation of the relationship between internet addiction, loneliness level and ruminative thinking in university students

The internet, whose importance has increased rapidly from the past to the present, makes human life significantly easier. The existence of the Internet, in addition to the convenience it provides, also causes Internet addiction, which causes spending more time on the Internet than normal and negatively affects human life. Internet addiction is caused not only by different options in the internet environment, but also by loneliness, which is a person's being disconnected from society and feeling socially incomplete, and ruminative thoughts that cause negative feelings and thoughts to emerge and make the person feel hopeless. In this study, it was aimed to examine whether there is a significant relationship between internet addiction, loneliness and ruminative thinking style. 386 university students studying at Çukurova University were included in this study. Of the participants, 201 (52%) were girls and 185 (48%) were boys. In addition, Multiple Regression Analysis technique was used to predict internet addiction. Internet addiction level, loneliness level and ruminative thinking style were examined as the variables that constitute the main problem of the research. Gender, age, family income level, family type, family income level and general academic achievement average are demographic variables that constitute sub-problems. Personal information form was used to measure demographic variables in the study, UCLA Loneliness Scale was used to measure loneliness level, Internet Addiction Scale was used to measure internet addiction level and Ruminative Thinking Style Scale was used to measure ruminative thinking style. As a result of the research, it was found that Internet addiction is in a significant relationship with gender, one of the demographic variables mentioned in the research questions; It was concluded that age, family type and family income level did not have a significant relationship with the variables of general academic achievement average. It has been observed that the level of internet addiction has a significant relationship with the variables of loneliness level and ruminative thinking styles, and the level of loneliness and ruminative thoughts have an effect on internet addiction. Key words: Internet addiction, loneliness level, ruminative thoughts.