Examination of internet addiction among adolescents, in terms of internet usage during the preschool period, parental attitude and personality traits

This research mainly indicates the internet addiction in adolescents; pre-school internet usage was examined to observe the effects of parental attitudes and personality traits. In this study, the first issue which was determined according to the purpose of the research was that whether the findings differed on the variables of the type of the first technological device used by the child, the age of using the internet for the first time, the length of internet usage, the age of first use of internet, the status of getting preschool education, and the length of the internet usage on weekdays and at weekends. Then, a model was developed to determine the mediating role of the personality variable in the relationship between the parents' attitudes variable and the internet addiction variable. This model was tested with the Structural Equation Model (SEM) and it has been supported by the data. In this study; 333 young people between the ages of 14-18 who are continuing their education at high school level in Istanbul, and their parents constituted the sample. On adolescents, "Student Information Form '', ''Internet Addiction Scale '', '' Five-Factor Personality Scale '' and adolescent version of "Leuven Adolescent Perceived Parenting Scale (LAPPS)" have been applied and "Family Information Form" and parents version of '' LAPPS '' have been applied to their parents. According to the results of the study, in terms of the variables of the type of first technological device that the child can use, the length of using the internet at the first age of internet usage, and the status of getting preschool education; it was found that the difference between parental attitudes, personality traits, and internet addiction scores were not significant among all groups. According to the child's age of using the internet for the first time, the difference between the groups was not significant in the LAPPS parent version and the father version for adolescents, the difference between the groups was significant in the mother version for adolescents, the average of those who used the internet in the first 3-6 age range, it was observed that there was no significant difference between the averages of the children between the ages of 7 and 10 and the averages of the other groups. It was found that the difference between the groups was not significant in the Five-Factor Personality Scale and the Internet Addiction Scale according to the age of the child's first use of the internet. According to the variable for the time length of the child's use of the internet on weekdays, weekends, and holidays, it was found that there was no significant difference on Personality Scale between the groups in terms of mother version for LAPPS adolescents, father and parent version for adolescents. According to the Internet Addiction Scale, the difference between the groups related to the length of internet usage during the week is significant. It was found that the internet addiction in average for those who use 0-2 hours and 2-4 hours is significantly lower than the internet addiction average for those who use 6 or more hours and the average of those who never use and those who use 4-6 hours do not significantly differ from the mean of other groups. According to the duration of internet usage during weekends and holidays, the difference between the groups on the scale of internet addiction is found to be significant. The difference between the average of those who never used the internet was significantly lower than the average of those who used 6 or more hours, the average of those who used the internet 0-2 hours was significantly lower compared to the averages of those who used 4-6 hours and 6 or more hours, and the average of those who used 2-4 hours was significantly lower compared to the averages of those who used 6 or more hours. It turned out to be low on the scale of internet addiction. In the model which was established to measure whether the effect of perceived parenting attitude on internet addiction is provided by the personality traits variable, it was found that the personality traits variable was the full mediator. Key Words: Addiction, Computer Addiction, Internet Addiction, Parental Attitudes, Personality