Investigation of computer and internet usage status of of elementary students 5-8.class in non-urban area

Purpose: By identifying the causes and objectives of Internet usage frequency of 5,6,7 and 8th grade students in the elementary school in non-urban regions to reveal some variables that affect internet addiction . Materials and Metods: This is a cross-sectional study to investigate computer and internet usage status of of elementary students 5-8.class in Pozantı district of Adana and Çamlıyayla district of Mersin and to determine the factors affecting internet addiction. The universe of the study was planned to include all 5-8 classes students in two towns also villages and the boarding schools that means 1402 students. The study was carried out with 1301( 92.8 %) students; 923 from Pozantı and 378 from Çamlıyayla. The questionnaire was formed 46 questions about students' internet usage levels and aims that was developed by the researcher by demographic information and computers-internet usage habits and 20 questions Young's Internet Addiction Scale (IAS). For statistical evaluation SPSS 20.0 for Windows software package and as statistical analysis chi-square test, T-test between two independent groups, ANOVA was used and p value of <0.05 was considered to be statistically significant. Results: 671 students in the study ( 51.6 % ) were female and 630 ( 48.4 % ) were male and the average age was 12.69 ± 1.15. 54.3% of the students had a computer and 38.3% had internet connection at home, and 26.2% had a mobile phone with an internet connection of his/her own. 95.0% of students use internet for doing homework, 87.2 % for playing games, 46.6% for chat, 29.4% discuss video and 15.8% for shopping. While 54.1% of the students have an e-mail address, 49.6% of them have his/her own web page (Facebook, Twitter, Web, etc.). The study group's Internet Addiction Scale (IAS) average score was 19.30 ± 14.07. 2 (0.2%) of the students were "Internet addict" and 34 (2.6%) were "Having limited symptoms". Boy students those who are 14 years old and over, whose parents hasn't completed any school or graduate from high school-university, those who define their family economic situation as 'very good' , those who have internet connection at home, those have mobile phones with internet connection, those who connect to the internet from a mobile phone, those learn using internet from internet cafes, those who finds himself successful in the use of the internet, those who use internet for a long time for homework, those who play games on the internet for a long time, those who own an e-mail and web pages (Facebook, Twitter, Web, etc.), those who chat on the internet and make video calls, those who shop on the internet IAS scores average found significantly higher than others. IAS scores average of the students in the village schools, those who mark the school success as 'very good' , those who dont have a computer, those who did not visit any site on the internet were significantly lower. In addition, when the students time of computer use (years), the number of places where they connect to the internet, the number of people with internet-connected mobile phone in the family, both weekdays and weekends (holidays) internet usage time and the number of types of games they play on the internet increases, IAS scores average also increase. Conclusions: According to the results although the prevalence of Internet addiction is low, increasing the time students spending on the internet, the increase of sites they spend time on the Internet, easy access to the internet, having portable electronic appliances such as tablets, mobile phones etc. are the main factors that increase the internet addiction scores. Key Words: internet, internet addiction, smartphone, elementary school students