Social Media Addiction among Turkish University Students During the Pandemic: A Descriptive Study

Abstract

Social media is a virtual medium that eliminates the concepts of time and space, and its use is known to have increased during the pandemic. It is estimated that the effects of social media addiction among young people have increased during the pandemic. This study aims to determine the internet addiction levels of young people, specific to the social media, with the restrictions imposed during the Covid-19 pandemic; and to propose solutions for the fight against the technology addiction which is accepted as an addiction type. The study employed a quantitative model. Two hundred fifty-eight young people in the 18 - 25 age range studying at different faculties of Sakarya University participated in the study. The Social Media Addiction Scale for Adolescents was administered to the participants. This scale is a measurement tool for determining university students' social media addiction levels, which has nine items, consists of a single factor, and is implemented in a five-point Likert form. For homogeneity testing, the Kolmogorov - Smirnov result was found at sig .00, and Cronbach's alpha value was found at .876 in the scale reliability analysis. The frequency, t-test, analysis of variance (ANOVA), and chi-square tests were performed in the analysis of the data. This study is descriptive in terms of the function of the information. According to the findings, the average scale score was calculated as 2.0693, indicating that young people did not develop an addiction to social media. This result reveals two facts. First, youngsters are aware of both the positive aspects and the addictive nature of social media, and can control their usage behavior. Secondly, they no longer develop signs of addiction based on the variables sought for social media addiction.