ÖĞRENCİLERİN BİLGİSAYAR VE INTERNET KULLANIMINDA YENİ BİR BOYUT: “İNTERNET BAĞIMLILIĞI”

Abstract

The developments in technology offer a variety of technological products which make daily life easier. Today Internet enables people to reach and share information in any field. However, it brings about some side effects/drawbacks as well. These are mainly due to inappropriate handling with technology. This is especially valid in the case of internet usage. Studies indicate that there is a possibility that students become addicted to computer and internet. They also show that such over usage of computer and/or Internet affects students’ social relationships and academic achievements in a negative way. The present study aims to find out Internet usage of the prospective computer teachers and thereby to define the concept of “internet addiction” according to the components and symptoms occur in student teachers’ written feedbacks. The research was carried out with 57 student teachers of Computer and Instructional Technologies Department at Marmara University. They were asked to reflect on questions concerning the usage of Internet. Then their written responses were examined and categoriesed. Findings indicated that 95% of the student teachers have their own personal computers, of which 44% have ADSL connections for Internet. Findings also showed that 29 of the student teachers (50%) complained about the time they wasted on unnecessary things while surfing in the Internet. Some of these prospective teachers pointed out that in some cases Internet limits their time needs to be allocated for their other responsibilities such as studying, doing homework or working on their projects. Keywords : Internet addiction, computer addiction, computer usage, internet usage, over usage, unfavourable usage