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Loneliness, Depression, Social Support Levels, and Other Factors Involving the Internet Use of High School Students in Turkey

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Abstract

This descriptive study was carried out to examine problematic Internet use among high school students, and its relationship with the students’ family characteristics, loneliness, depression, and social support levels. For this study, 881 students were chosen by simple random sampling method from 8346 high school students in 18 secondary institutions of Edirne, Turkey. Data were collected using Online Cognition Scale, Depression Scale for Children, UCLA Loneliness Scale, and Multidimensional Perceived Social Support Scale. The study found that younger students, especially males, who used the Internet in the mornings and evenings at home and on their mobile phones exhibited more signs of problematic Internet use. Problematic Internet use was also found to be increased among the students who spent more time on the Internet, showed more signs of depression and loneliness, had more siblings, and whose mothers had higher levels of education. The results of the study indicate training programs should be offered by relevant experts in internet usage.

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Acknowledgments

We gratefully acknowledge the kind cooperation of all the students who generously gave of their time, as well as that of the Edirne Provincial Directorate of National Education and the educators for their help and support during the data collection process.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Child Health and Disease Nursing, Trakya University, Edirne, Turkey

    Melahat Akgün Kostak

  2. Faculty of Health Sciences, Department of Public Health Nursing, Trakya University, Edirne, Turkey

    İlknur Dindar

  3. Department of Pediatric Emergency Unit, Trakya University Hospital, Edirne, Turkey

    Refiye Zafer Dinçkol

Authors
  1. Melahat Akgün Kostak
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  2. İlknur Dindar
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  3. Refiye Zafer Dinçkol
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Correspondence to Melahat Akgün Kostak.

Ethics declarations

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on humanexperimentation (institutional and national) and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest to disclose.

Informed Consent

Informed consent was obtained from all participants prior to their being included in the study.

Financial and Other Support

We are grateful to the Scientific Research Projects of Trakya University for financial assistance and to Prof. Dr. Necdet Sut for assistance in statistical analysis.

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Akgün Kostak, M., Dindar, İ. & Zafer Dinçkol, R. Loneliness, Depression, Social Support Levels, and Other Factors Involving the Internet Use of High School Students in Turkey. Int J Ment Health Addiction 17, 1521–1534 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-018-9927-3

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