A study of internet addiction levels of primary school, secondary school and high school final year stutents

In this thesis study, Internet addiction states of primary school, secondary school and high school final year students in Yeşilyurt district of Malatya province were studied according to several variables. The population of the present study, which is 11868 in total, is composed of 4199 final year students studying in 60 public primary schools, 4227 final year students studying in 56 public secondary schools, and 3442 final year students studying in 37 public high schools in Yeşilyurt district of Malatya province in 2016-2017 school year. The sample of the study, which consists of 2986 final year students in total, is 1326 final year students studying in 35 public primary schools, 869 final year students studying in 24 public secondary schools, and 799 final year students studying in 17 public high schools, which were selected randomly from the schools in the population. During data collection process, 2986 students were reached, and 2611 of them were included in data analysis. The design of the research is relational screening model. In order to determine the addiction level of students, "Internet Addiction Scale", which was developed by Günüç (2009), was employed. This scale includes such sub-dimensions as "deprivation", "control difficulty", "functional deterioration" and "social isolation". T-test, k-means clustering method and One Way ANOVA were used for data analysis. When significant differences were observed as a result of ANOVA test, LSD, a post-hoc technique, was conducted in order to determine from which group(s) these differences originate. All these analyses were computerized using SPSS for Windows 22.00 statistical package. In conclusion, the findings of the study are as follows: out of 2611 students, 397 (%15,2) were found to be in addicted group, 1016 (%38,9) in risky group, and 1198 (%45,9) in non-addicted group. Considering these results, it is seen that most (%45,9) of the students constituting the research sample are in non-addicted group. Furthermore, a significant difference was observed in favour of male students in terms of Internet addiction mean. On the other hand, a significant difference was not seen in students' Internet addiction mean in terms of mother's educational status, father's educational status, mother's and father's profession and family monthly income variables. Key Words: Internet, Internet Addiction, Addiction