The relationship between psychological needs, problematic internet use and personal virtues

The aim of this study is to investigate the relationship between the psychological needs, problematic internet use levels and personal virtues of secondary education students. This study is a research based on descriptive survey model. The study group of the research consisted of 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th grade students studying at different high school types in a medium-sized city center of the Central Black Sea Region between the years 2020-2021. The sample of the study, which was selected using the simple random sampling method, had been consisting of 636 high school students whom were 351 female and 311 male. The data of the study were collected with the Psychological Needs Scale, the Problematic Internet Use Scale-Adolescent Form, the Personal Virtues Scale and the Personal Information Form which was prepared by the researcher. Since the Psychological Needs Scale and Personal Virtues scale were prepared for university students, adaptation, validity and reliability studies were conducted on high school students within the scope of the study. Simple and multiple linear regression analysis to determine the relationships between psychological needs, problematic internet use and personal virtues variables; independent samples t-test was used to analyze differentiation by gender the changes, one way ANOVA was used to analyze differentiation by grade level in the specified variables. The findings of the study showed that love/belonging and freedom psychological needs sub-dimensions were significant predictors of high school students' problematic internet use, while their other psychological needs (power and fun) were not significant. In addition, it was determined that responsibility personal virtue sub-dimension was significant in explaining problematic internet use, but purposefulness and worthiness sub-dimensions were not significant. As a result of the research, personal virtues were found to be an important predictor in explaining psychological needs. The findings showed that, while the problematic internet use situations of high school students differ in favor of men, psychological needs and personal virtues do not differ according to gender. Finally in the study, it was concluded that while problematic internet use and psychological needs did not differ according to grade levels, personal virtues differed significantly in favor of 10th and 12th grade students. The findings of the research were discussed on the basis of the relevant literature, and suggestions for research and practice were presented.