A Comparative Study of Social Media Addiction Among Turkish and Korean University Students

Abstract

Social networks, where access is provided through mobile phones via theinternet, have transformed our communication habits, while also pavingthe way for social media addiction. As social media addiction harmsall areas of a person’s life, this research has focused on identifying theaddictions of young people who have not started their professional lifeyet. Considering that technology is involved in people’s lives to differentextents in different countries, country comparisons are consideredimportant in digital addiction research. This study aims to compare socialmedia addiction among university students from South Korea and Turkey.The “Social Media Addiction Scale” developed by Tutgun-Ünal and Deniz(2015) was used in this study conducted with 270 university students.Some of the findings obtained in studies using a comparative surveymodel are as follows: (a) social media addiction is low in both countries,(b) South Korean students’ addiction was found at a higher level thanthose from Turkey, (c) students in South Korea are getting more emotionalsupport from social media, (d) the addiction of South Korean students onconflict dimension was found higher, (e) students in Turkey communicatewith their families via social media more than those in South Korea