The relationship between perception of boredom in leisure time, smartphone addiction and loneliness level (High school students example)

The aim of the current study is to determine the levels of leisure boredom, smartphone addiction and loneliness of the students studying at high schools; and to examine these in terms of various variables. The study population consists of students receiving their high school education at the high schools of National Education Directory of Manisa Province; the study sample consists of, 505 male (Medage=16.26± 1.11) and 564 female (Medage =16.17± 1.04), a total of 1069 (Medage =16.21± 1.08) volunteer students who own smartphones. As data collection tool, demographic information form developed by the researcher, Smartphone Addiction Scale – Short Form adapted into Turkish language by Noyan et.al. (2015); Leisure Boredom Scale adapted into Turkish language by Kara, Gürbüz and Öncü (2014) and UCLA Loneliness Scale – Short Form adapted into Turkish language by Yıldız and Duy (2014) were used. In the analysis of the obtained data, frequency, arithmetic mean, standard deviation, as well as t test, MANOVA, ANOVA and Pearson Correlation tests were used for independent samples as the statistical method. In order to test if data meet prerequisites for parametric tests, Skewness and Kurtosis values (normal distribution of data) and Levene (variant equilibrium) test results were determined. In the study results, it was determined that ANOVA test results related to Smartphone Addiction Scale – Short Form statistically differs in terms of "smartphone use duration" and "frequency of participation in physical activities"; ANOVA test results related to UCLA Loneliness Scale – Short Form differs in terms of "checking smartphone daily", "smartphone use duration", "smartphone addiction state", "having difficulty in making use of leisure" and "frequency of participation in physical activities"; and MANOVA test results related to Leisure Boredom Scale differs in terms of "gender", "checking smartphone daily", "smartphone use duration", "smartphone addiction state", "having difficulty in making use of leisure" and "frequency of participation in physical activities". Also, there is a low level and positive correlation between "boredom" subscale of Leisure Boredom Scale and UCLA Loneliness Scale – Short Form whereas there is a low level and negative correlation between "satisfaction" subscale of Leisure Boredom Scale and UCLA Loneliness Scale – Short Form. As a result, it is concluded that the mean scores of the participants for Smartphone Addiction Scale – Short Form, UCLA Loneliness Scale – Short Form and Leisure Boredom Scale differ in terms of various demographic variables; that the mean scores of the students from Smartphone Addiction Scale are high; that the more the students' leisure boredom perception increase, the more their loneliness levels increase and their leisure satisfaction decrease; and that when the levels of participation in physical activities increase, their levels of smartphone addiction, loneliness and boredom perception decrease as well as their satisfaction levels increase.