University Students' Problematic Internet Use and Communication Skills according to the Internet Use Purposes

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate whether the levels of university students' problematic internet use and of perceived communication skills differ with respect to their basic internet use purposes. The participants were 411 university students [215 of whom were females (52.30%) and 196 of whom were males (47.70%)]. In the study, the Problematic Internet Use Scale and the Communication Skills Evaluation Scale were applied. The analysis of the data was carried out via multivariate analysis of variance. The findings revealed that university students' perceived communication skill levels did not differ with respect to their main internet use purposes but that the levels of their problematic internet use did. In this respect, it was found that in terms of basic internet use purpose, the problematic internet use levels of the university students who "use the internet for entertainment purposes" and of those who "use the internet to establish social relationships with unfamiliar people" were significantly higher than that of those who "use the internet to obtain information." This result points out that the use of the internet for entertainment and social interaction constitutes an important risk factor for the emergence of the problematic internet use symptoms.