TURKISH UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ DEPRESSION DEGREE AND INTERNET USING

Year 2019, Volume: 27 Issue: 2, 117 - 128, 01.06.2019

Birol Gülnar

Abstract

Different discussions have been made about positive and negative effects of new information and communication technologies in academia, over last decades. Depression is one of the negative important indicators of psychological well being. It is important that the effects of these new technologies on young people’s psychological well being are potentially negative. This study intends to show levels of Turkish university students’ depression as a negative indicator of psychological well-being, and types of internet usage (communication, entertainment, and informative). Add to this, the research aims to investigate the relationship between depression and internet usage types (communication, entertainment, and informative) among Turkish university students. The survey was conducted on two thousand eight hundred and six (2806) students who attend twenty six (26) universities locating on throughout Turkey. Different sampling techniques were used such as cluster, purposeful and random sampling for representing all Turkey university students. Data was collected via a questionnaire which includes different subscales such as depression, internet usage types and individual differences. Results indicated that 49.2 % of participants have depression at medium or high degree. Also participants’ daily average internet usage time is 118 minutes. Students more frequently use internet for the purpose of communication and entertainment while they use it for the purpose of information less. In addition, internet usage for entertainment and communication was positively and significantly correlated with depression. Lastly, it was concluded that general internet usage was positively and significantly correlated with depression.

Keywords

Depression, Turkish University students, internet usage

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