Effects of leisure time spent on internet to university students' happiness and life satisfaction levels

The purpose of this study is to examine the effects of amount of leisure time spent on internet by university students to their happiness and life satisfaction values. 438 university students in 2012-2013 academic year from 20 different universities participated in this research. Data collection process was carried out with a questionnaire consisting of a personal information form containing 49 items (15 personal information and 34 leisure items), "Life Satisfaction Scale" developed by Diener E. (2006) and "Oxford Happiness Scale" developed by Hills & Argyle. Data recorded by SPSS (version 16.0) program, frequency and percentage calculations were conducted for descriptive statistics. To reveal to differences among different groups "Independent T-Tests", to reveal the relation "Pearson Correlation Tests" were performed and conditions p<0.05 were accepted as meanings that there are significant differences among the groups. According to research results; %72.8 of university students have 4 hours and more leisure time daily and almost half of them (% 44.5) have complaints about having not enough leisure time. Most of the university students (84.2) own a computer, almost all of them (%92.2) uses internet in their leisure times and its remarkable that internet users have a great rate (%93.4) on use of social networks. %55.3 of students spend their leisure time at home, %43.2 as alone and it is distinctive that students who spend their leisure time outdoor have a rate of %64.1. Also, it's detected that happiness and life satisfaction values are greater (p<0.05) for student who spend their leisure times outdoor than students spend their leisure time at home. The reasons of university students "home" choice for their leisure times are being considered as; home is a fair and relaxing environment, easy to watch TV and use of internet, listening music etc., also the reasons of "outdoor" choice for their leisure times are being considered as; freedom to move, seeing friends, visiting social environments, opportunities for new friends, recreation, outdoor events. Additionally, although there is not significant differences between students' leisure time spent on internet and their happiness values and also between the rates of use of social networks and their life satisfaction levels, there are significant differences between students' leisure time spent on internet and life satisfaction levels (p<0.05) and also between the rates of use of social networks and happiness values (p0.01) which proves that there is a direct influence of spending leisure times on internet and social networks to happiness values and life satisfaction levels of university students. Keywords: Leisure-time, Recreation, Student, İnternet, Happiness, Life Satisfaction