Depression, internet addiction and loneliness relations in adolescents of high school students

Abstract

This study is conducted as a cross-sectional research in order to investigate depression, internet addiction, and loneliness relationships in adolescents of high school students. It is targeted to reach 690 students. In the study, Personal Information Form, Beck Depression Scale, Internet Addiction Scale, and UCLA Loneliness Scale are used. In the evaluation of the data, descriptive statistics (frequency and percentage values, minimum, maximum, average, and standard deviation), and Pearson correlation coefficients are used. When the characteristics of adolescents of high school students who participated in the survey are examined, it is found that 46.0% of the adolescents are women, 30.6% of the study in 9th grade, 30.9% of them are 17 years old, and 74.3% of them have internet connections in their homes. It is determined that the level of internet addiction in the adolescents with depression tendency (=19.40±18.61) is significantly higher than the adolescents without depression tendency (=9.81±11.77) and the level of loneliness in the adolescents with depression tendency (=52.61±6.57) is significantly higher than the adolescents without depression tendency (=50.75±6.74). It is determined that there is no significant relation between the levels of loneliness and internet addiction in adolescents (r=0.011; p>0.05). Besides, it is determined that there is a positive and high-level relation between the depression level and internet addiction of adolescents (r=0.384; p<0.05) and there is a positive and low-level relation between the loneliness level and internet addiction of adolescents (r=0.090; p<0.05).