Examination of secondary students who educate in private schools on digital game addictions and opinions on digital games

This research is a descriptive study to examine the digital game addictions of secondary school students studying in private schools and their views on digital games. The research population consists of secondary school students studying in private schools affiliated to Gaziantep Provincial Directorate of National Education, and the sample group consists of 350 (178 Girls, 172 Boys) students selected on a voluntary basis. "Digital Game Addiction Scale for Children" developed by Hazar and Hazar (2017) was used as a data collection tool in the research. SPSS 22.0 program was used in the analysis of the data. It was determined that the data in the study showed normal distribution and parametric tests were applied. Descriptive statistical calculations and percentage frequency analyzes were made. Numerical data were interpreted in tables by using independent samples t-test and One Way Anova analyzes to determine the difference between the independent variables of the data. The significance level was taken as p<0.05. As a result of the research, it was determined that there was a significant difference in terms of gender variable and that boys' addiction to playing digital games was higher than girls. While it was seen that there was a significant difference in terms of the variable of the class studied, it was stated that the game addictions of the 6th grade students were higher than the 5th grade students. In addition, when we look at the educational status of the parents, it is seen that there is a significant difference and the digital game addiction of the children of the parents with a high level of education is higher. In addition, it was observed that there was a significant difference in terms of family income level, digital game addiction of children with high family income level was also high, while digital game addictions of children increased as their academic success decreased. At the same time, it was concluded that as the daily digital play time increased, children's addiction to digital games increased, and those who used a computer as a gaming platform achieved higher scores than those who used a game console, tablet and mobile phone.