The relationship between internet addiction, social isolation, attitude toward seeking psychological help and self-esteem among university students

In this research, the relationship between internet addiction, social isolation, attitude towards seeking psychological help, and self-esteem among university students aged 18-30 who continue their education in Istanbul was examined according to age, gender and university type. Before the data analysis, z values between -3.29 and +3.29 were excluded from the study as a result of controlling the extreme values, and the data of 504 participants were examined. The participant profile in the study consists of 343 women and 161 men. According to the university type, there are 285 state and 219 foundation universities. Apart from the demographic information form, four scales were used to measure the relationship between the variables. These scales are: Attitudes Towards Seeking Psychological Help Scale-Short Form, Social Isolation Scale, Young Internet Addiction Scale-Short Form, and Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale. The research is based on the question of whether there is a significant difference between internet addiction, social isolation, attitudes towards seeking psychological help and self-esteem according to age, gender and university type. In the analysis of data with normal distribution, independent sample t-test was applied to compare the variables. According to this; female participants' attitudes towards seeking psychological help are significantly higher than male participants. Self-esteem of female participants is significantly higher than male participants. Pearson Correlation was applied to examine the relationship between the age of the participants and their variable scores. According to this; Younger participants have higher attitude scores and self-esteem scores towards seeking psychological help. Young participants have higher social isolation and internet addiction scores. There was no significant difference between the variables according to the type of university. Three-model hierarchical regression analysis was performed to examine the variables that were found to be related as a result of the correlation analysis and the variables that predicted the problematic internet use of university students. According to this; decrease in age, decrease in self-esteem scores and increase in social isolation scores explain internet addiction at a significant level of 23% (R2=.23). Internet addiction is predicted significantly by being younger, having high social isolation scores and low self-esteem scores.