Investigation the predictive effects of cognitive distortions on problematic internet use among university students

The aim of this study is to investigate the predictive effect of cognitive distortions on problematic internet use among university students. In the research, the correlational survey model has been used. This model is a research that tries to find whether there are relationship between two or more changeables and there are, it tries to define the degree of them. This research has been carried out with 575 students who are students of different departments at Atatürk University Kazım Karabekir Education Faculty at 2018-2019 academic year. Self Regulation scale, Problematic Internet Usage scale and cognitive distortion scale was used till the process of data collection. Independent samples t test, one way ANOVA, Pearson Correlation Analysis and Structural Equation Model were used through SPSS program in the analysis of the data. At the end of the research, it has been seen that, male students use problematic internet more than female students at a significiant level and has also been seen that, the more they use the internet daily, the more problematic behaviours they display. It has been datected that cognitive distortions predict problematic internet use substantially. The results abtained from research datas have been discussed in accordance with literature and many suggestions have been made for the purpose of contributing to the coming studies.