The investigation of the relationship among university students' problematic use of internet, perceived parental attitudes and personality characteristics

In this study, the relationship between problematic internet usage levels, perceived parental attitudes and personality traits of university students is investigated. The sample of the research consists of 419 students of which 258 are females and 161 are males studying at Hasan Kalyoncu University in the 2019-2020 academic year. Data was collected by the application of the Problematic Internet Usage Scale, Parent Attitude Scale and Five Factor Personality Inventory Short Form and General Information Form. Data was analyzed by independent samples t-Test and One Way ANOVA. The relationship between Perceived Parental Attitudes, Five Factor Personality Traits and Problematic Internet Use among university students was investigated throught the application of Pearson Correlation analysis method. Multiple Regression Analysis was conducted to determine the predictive level of the Parenting Attitude Scale scores and Five Factor Personality Scale scores. Regression analysis was conducted to examine the level of predicting personality traits of parental attitudes. Regression analysis results showed that self-discipline / responsibility sub-dimension of personality traits, emotional imbalance sub-dimensions and protective-requestor and authoritarian subdimensions of parental attitudes predicted problematic internet use. Regression analysis results showed that; democratic and protective-willing parent attitudes predicted Emotional imbalance sub-dimension while protective-willing and authoritarian parental attitudes did not. It was concluded that democratic and protective-willing parental attitudes predicted Emotional imbalance while authoritarian parental attitudes did not. And it was found that parental attitudes din not predict the extraversion sub-dimension. These results were discussed in accordance with the studies in the related literature. Keywords: Parent attitudes, Problematic internet use, Personality traits.