University students' problematic internet use in terms of reasons for internet use

Abstract

The current research aims to determine the main effects of gender and the primary reason to use the internet and the interaction of them with the subscale scores of the problematic internet use including the negative consequences of the internet; social benefit/social comfort and excessive use. Data was collected from 1414 volunteer university students by means of utilizing the Problematic Internet Usage Scale and a questionnaire. The results of the analyses computed with the MANOVA and the following ANOVAs indicated that the main effect of gender was significant for the subscale of social benefit/social comfort of the problematic internet use and the main effect of the primary reason to use internet was significant for the subscales of the negative consequences and social benefit/social comfort, but the interaction of them was not significant for all the subscales. As a result, the study reveals that males used internet to get social benefit/social comfort more than females do. Moreover, the students who use internet primarily for getting connected socially with unreal life contacts experience more severe negative consequences of internet and use internet to get social benefit/social comfort more intensively than the students who use the internet primarily for gathering information about a topic. In addition, the students who use internet primarily for recreation experience more intensive negative consequences of internet than the students who use internet mainly for gathering information about any topic.