Digital reading habits of high school senior students living in Ankara

Reading, which is an individual life behavior and action, is a means of socialization, in other words, a means of participating in social life. Our perceptions, attitudes, feelings, thoughts, habits and behaviors related to reading constitute reading culture. Since culture is a changing phenomenon, reading culture also changes depending on historical and social conditions. Digital reading is a new type of reading that has emerged especially with technological developments in reading culture. It can be said that digital reading, which we can consider as a part of reading culture, is rapidly becoming widespread among children and young people who are known to be more prone to the use of technology. For this reason, it is of great importance to investigate digital reading in terms of young people. The aim of this study is to examine the digital reading habits of senior high school students in Ankara in various dimensions. In addition to digital reading habits, the study also aims to examine printed reading habits and to reveal sub-issues such as which type of reading students prefer and why, which reading materials and tools they use, what kind of reading content they prefer and how they obtain it, their reading place and time preferences, the digital resources they own, and their frequency and purpose of library use. It is also aimed to make these examinations in the context of socio-economic status of families and demographic variables. The research problem was formulated as "What characteristics do the digital reading habits of senior high school students in Ankara show?". In this context, "At what level and quality are the digital reading habits of students, depending on which factors and how much they change" was considered as the research question of the study. Depending on the purpose of the study and the research problem, the hypothesis of the research was formed as follows: "Senior high school students in Ankara have a tendency towards digital reading, but this type of reading is not a priority for them." In our study, which was conducted with a sample of 294 senior high school students in a school in Ankara, the descriptive method was used and data were collected with the questionnaire technique to measure the digital reading habits of senior high school students. According to the data obtained as a result of the analysis made with the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program and chi-square tests, it was concluded that although senior high school students in Ankara have a certain tendency towards digital reading, they perform both types of reading together and prefer to read printed sources more among them. In addition, a significant relationship was found between the frequency and types of reading of students and the educational level of their parents, and it was understood that students with families with higher levels of education had higher rates of print and digital reading habits. At the end of the study, various suggestions were made on the subject. Keywords High school students, Reading habits, Digital reading habits, Reading culture, Socioeconomic characteristics, Socio-economic factors, Ankara.