Problematic Internet Use in Terms of the Purposes of Internet Use, Irrational Beliefs, Feelings of Inferiority, and Gender

Abstract

University students are one of the most Internet-related groups in society. They are more likely to use theInternet for socialization and academic-development purposes. These needs lead some students to excessiveInternet use, the most decisive marker of problematic Internet use. The aim of this study is to examineproblematic Internet use with respect to the purpose of Internet use, irrational beliefs, feelings of inferiority,and gender. Data have been collected using a demographic information form and the Problematic Internet UseScale, Feelings of Inferiority Scale, and Irrational Beliefs Test. Statistical Package for Windows is used for dataanalysis. Descriptive statistics, correlation analyses, ANOVA, and regression analyses have been conducted toexamine the data. The results show that students who use the Internet for social media and playing gameshave a significantly higher level of problematic Internet use than those who use the Internet for academicpurposes. According to the regression analysis results, discouragement and the negation of self-worth (the twosub-dimension of inferiority feelings) explain 25% of the total variance in problematic internet usage. They arefollowed by the three subdimensions of irrational beliefs, namely desire for approval, blaming tendencies, andperfectionism. These variables explain 2% of the total variance in problematic internet usage. Lasltly, gender(being male) explain 1% of the total variance in problematic internet usage. At the end of this study,predictorsare examined according to gender seperately and results indicate that discouragement and the negation of selfvalue explain 25% of the total variance in problematic internet use among female and male students whereas,irrational beliefs predict only female students’ problematic internet use with its 4% explanatory power. Basedon these results, having discouragement and the negation of self-worth be considered as highly importantvariables in the problematic Internet use of university students is strongly recommended. However, despitethe background in the literature on cognitive factors in problematic Internet use, their small effect in this studyshows the relationship of irrational beliefs with problematic Internet use to require more research.