The prevalence of internet addiction

The internet which provides the interconnection of the computers all over the world and can be a cause of the social changes has rapidly been improved in recent years. The usage of computer?s becoming widespread and the rapid expansion of its area of use come with some negations. One of these negations is the internet addiction. The internet addiction may be seen at all ages and in both genders. The internet addiction begins at earlier ages when compared to the addictions of the psychoactive substance, alcohol, and gambling which begin at rather advanced ages. The largest risk group is the adolescents within 12-18 age range. Despite the fact that the internet addiction is a serious risk for the adolescents, the studies on this matter remain inadequate. However, it draws attention that the studies on the subject of the internet addiction are limited and insufficient especially in our country despite the fact that the internet addiction is a serious risk for the adolescents. Therefore, to define and research the prevalence of the internet addiction among the adolescent is the main purpose of this study. The prevalence data received by using Internet Addiction Scale of the city of İzmir could not be found when the articles about this subject were reviewed. The adolescents within 12-18 age range who attend to the schools of The Ministry of Public Education in the city of İzmir constitute the population in this study which is prepared in compliance with the screening model. The stratified sampling method out of the probability based sampling methods is used in the forming of the sampling of the research. The Internet Addiction Scale and the Personal Information Form which is created by the researcher in order to determine the socio-demographical characteristics are used as the data gathering mediums in the study. The prevalence of internet addiction as a result of the analysis was 12.6 %.