April 2012 Volume 15 Number 2 - Educational Technology & Society

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Gencer, S. L., & Koc, M. (2012). Internet Abuse among Teenagers and Its Relations to Internet Usage Patterns and Demographics. Educational Technology & Society, 15 (2), 25–36. Internet Abuse among Teenagers and Its Relations to Internet Usage Patterns and Demographics Suzan Lema Gencer and Mustafa Koc Department of Educational Technology, Suleyman Demirel University, 32260, Isparta, Turkey // szntamer@gmail.com // mustafakoc@sdu.edu.tr ABSTRACT This study focused on exploring Internet abuse among teenagers and its relations to some Internet usage patterns and demographic characteristics in a digitalizing country, Turkey. It was designed as a cross–sectional research on three types of school that differ in their academic performances. The data were collected from 1380 high school students through a paper–based questionnaire. The results identified a small portion of students as Internet abusers experiencing severe problems and one fourth as possible abusers experiencing occasional problems in their lives. Excessive use, tolerance, preoccupation with the Internet, and using the Internet to escape from negative feelings were the most frequently reported symptoms of disturbed patterns of online behaviors. One–way between–groups ANOVA tests revealed that Internet abuse differed significantly based on gender and perceived academic achievement with small effect sizes, and frequency of Internet use, dominant place of Internet use and dominant purpose for Internet use with medium and large effect sizes. On the contrary, no significant differences were found based on perceived socio–economic status and the type of school attended. Keywords Internet abuse, High school students, Usage patterns, Demographics, Turkey Introduction Internet access and usage in the world has been proliferating year by year, with approximately 1.11 billion users in 2007, 1.67 billion in 2009, and 1.97 billion in 2010 (Miniwatts Marketing Group, 2010), indicating an upward trend in the number of digitally literate people. Such a rapid growth has been interacted with people’s needs and motivation. Information, communication, and entertainment have been prominent motives behind the Internet use. The advantages of the Internet are undeniable and well–evidenced in the literature. Nevertheless, excessive or unregulated usage has been associated with a condition of Internet–related disturbances which Morahan–Martin (2008) calls “Internet abuse” referring to the “patterns of using the Internet that result in disturbances in a person’s life but does not imply a specific disease process or addictive behavior” (p. 34). Some scholars or clinicians prefer to use the term “Internet addiction” to define this condition as a form of impulse control disorder (e.g., Young, 1998). Despite various approaches to the conceptualization of the condition, which is still developing and negotiated in ongoing research, studies acknowledged its existence and reported similar symptoms: school and work–related impairments, interpersonal problems, preoccupation with using the Internet, using the Internet to improve negative moods, and serious disturbances in users’ social capitals (Morahan–Martin, 2008). The present study adopted the concept of Internet abuse because it examined the condition in a non–pathological population and operationalized the Internet behavior as a continuum from normal to problematic usage. Nowadays, the adoption of digital technologies is known to be higher in young adolescents than adults. For example, the highest proportion of computer and Internet usage belongs to the 16–24 year old age group in Turkey (TUIK, 2010), where Internet users aged 15 and older were reported as the most engaged users in Europe in terms of time spent and the content consumed on the Internet (comScore, 2009). Being the mainstream consumers and drivers of digital contents, youngsters are at the center of a lucrative digital marketing enterprise. New products are designed essentially for appealing to emotions, habits, and values in youth culture (Montgomery, Gottlieb–Robles & Larson, 2004). This in turn makes young people early adopters and heavy users of digital technologies. Such an involvement, coupled with the psychologically sensitive developments of adolescence period, can make teenagers more susceptible to digital disturbances such as Internet abuse (Chou, Condron & Belland, 2005; Tsai & Lin, 2003). Therefore, empirical investigations of factors in problematic Internet use among teenagers have been called for to help parents, teachers, and counselors in guiding teenagers about the conscious and beneficial effects of Internet use. This study attempted to contribute to this call by exploring possible interactions between Turkish high school students’ status of Internet abuse, Internet usage patterns, and demographic characteristics. ISSN 1436-4522 (online) and 1176-3647 (print). © International Forum of Educational Technology & Society (IFETS). The authors and the forum jointly retain the copyright of the articles. Permission to make digital or hard copies of part or all of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than IFETS must be honoured. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, to republish, to post on servers, or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from the editors at kinshuk@ieee.org. 25
Although prior research on overall analysis of Internet abuse is prolific, the research on socio–demographic differences in this field is rather sparse or inconclusive. Gender is one of the predominantly investigated variables seen in the literature. While some studies indicated no gender differences in Internet abuse (e.g., Ferraro, Caci, D’amico & Blasi, 2007; Lee et al., 2007; Soule, Shall & Kleen, 2003), others revealed that males were more likely to become Internet abusers than females (e.g., Chou et al., 2005; Morahan–Martin & Schumacher, 2000; Yang & Tung, 2007). Although socio–economic status (SES) is an important factor especially in the developing countries, where digital divide still exists to some degree, not much attention has been devoted to this demographic variable. Only a few studies concluded that SES was not significantly associated with Internet abuse (e.g., Cakir–Balta & Horzum, 2008; Yoo et al., 2004). More systematic research is needed to clarify the role of gender and SES in problematic Internet use. Furthermore, increased availability of Internet access in educational environments has raised the recent question of whether disturbed Internet usage can be related to some academic variables. For example, the level of Internet abuse may be dependent on the schools that differ in terms of student motivation and academic achievement. School culture may also contribute to online behaviors. Perhaps, teachers, managers, or schoolmates socially encourage and reward students’ Internet usage. Empirical research is needed to examine school–related variables. Bayraktar and Gun (2007) found that secondary and high school students’ grade point averages decreased as their disturbed use of the Internet increased. Yang and Tung (2007) found that the likelihood of Internet abuse was higher for vocational high school students compared to other high school students. However, such research is very limited to make conclusive interpretations. On the other hand, a growing body of research has investigated what kinds of Internet use are associated with Internet abuse. In particular, the amount of Internet use has been persistently explored in the literature. While it has been found to be positively associated with Internet abuse, the findings differentiated in terms of average time spent online by Internet abusers (Cakir–Balta & Horzum, 2008; Chou & Hsiao, 2000; Morahan–Martin & Schumacher, 2000; Young, 1998). Therefore, further research with different measures of Internet use (e.g., frequency) is suggested to solidify the validity of previous findings. Moreover, there are other key usage patterns that may interact with disturbed Internet use. One of them could be the type of activities engaged on the Internet. Prior research indicated that Internet abusers often preferred interactive online activities such as chatting and playing online games (Chen, Tarn & Han, 2004; Young 1998). Such research should continue in different population and time periods because online behaviors may change according to both user characteristics (e.g., age, occupation, cultural identity) and new applications that will be added on the Internet. Yet another usage pattern is the place of Internet use. Young users usually share Internet access with others at their home and schools. This may lead to a limited amount of usage. Having watched by family members, teachers, and peers can also make youngsters feel uncomfortable and thus seek alternative places. There are some commercial places (e.g., cybercafes) that provide somewhat unrestricted Internet access at a reasonable cost. Such places also function as a popular entertainment and socialization outlet for youngsters because they can gather and use the Internet together (e.g., playing multi–user games). Research demonstrated that cybercafes covered 20% of recent Internet usage in Turkey (TUIK, 2010) and more than half of their clients were teenagers (Gurol & Sevindik, 2007). Another study on Turkish students aged 12 to 18 showed that most (72.4%) went to cybercafes and frequent visitors were more likely to be problematic Internet users than rare visitors (Tahiroglu, Celik, Uzel, Ozcan, & Avci, 2008). Although limited number of studies indicated home usage as an important factor in Internet abuse (e.g., Johansson & Gotestam, 2004), further research is needed to determine the associations of various places with Internet usage. Purpose of the study The purpose of this cross–sectional study was to explore the status of Internet abuse among 15–18 years old Turkish high school students and its relationship to their Internet use patterns and demographic characteristics. As indicated in the previous section, similar studies exist in the literature, but they are inconclusive and most focus on the developed and highly–digitalized countries that may differ in certain respects. Beard (2005) maintains that disturbed Internet use may differ by a number of socio–cultural factors including, but not limited to, family conflict, peer modeling, expectations of the society, Internet penetration rate, lack of certain social skills, cultural orientation, and value beliefs about the Internet. More research is needed to examine which variables are related to Internet abuse. Therefore, the present study attempts to enhance related literature by presenting data about some rarely examined usage variables (e.g., place of Internet use), beyond the usual demographics (e.g., school type), and from a culturally distinct developing country, Turkey. The study was guided by the following research questions: 26
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Utilization of Test Item 36 33 30 2
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E-training in organizations E-train
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efficacy regarding online training,
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Method Sample and procedure Figure
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References Alexander, C. (1979). Th
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Valsamidis, S., Kontogiannis, S., K
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Enright, A. J., van Dongen, S., Ouz
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Chu, S. K. W., Kwan, A. C. M., & Wa
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from the students’ ratings appear
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eading blogs (i.e., reminders, easy
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Luehmann, A. L. (2008). Using blogg
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Uzunboylu et al. (2009) examined th
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System implementation Overview of M
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Methods Before the experiment, a mo
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too simple, incomplete, or they eve
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Comparisons of UMLS Questionnaire i
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Parker, D., Manstead, A. S. R., Str
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Avci, U., & Askar, P. (2012). The C
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References Ajjan, H., & Hartshorne,
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Tan, T.-H., Lin, M.-S., Chu, Y.-L.,
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tests, electronic tests are more li
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Students 10 and 11: My classmate Ed
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collection was also approved by all
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Tai, Y. (2012). Contextualizing a M
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experiences in this phase. Moreover
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Gorp, K. V., & Bogaert, N. (2006).
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examinee’s ability more accuratel
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Leppisaari, I., & Lee, O. (2012). M
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Selection of the virtual tool The t
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Environmental themes emerged strong
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Visualization of text (visual langu
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worldviews are socio-cultural-histo
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Islas Sedano, C., Pawlowski, J., Su
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part of something larger than the s
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Technology Acceptance. The 10 items
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Discussion Differing from prior stu
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Haythornthwaite, C., Kazmer, M. M.,
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Ge, Z.-G. (2012). Cyber Asynchronou
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college of a university situated in
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Table 3 shows us the following info
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Appendix B shows Class 1’s respon
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increase one’s ability to process
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Appendix A Responses concerning syn
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Shih, S.-C., Kuo, B.-C., & Liu, Y.-
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Participants and Experimental Proce
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the influence of Test1 scores, an e
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Hall, T., & Bannon, L. (2006). Desi
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Methods Figure 5. Quest NPCs provid
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quests further involves students’
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Chang, I.-H. (2012). The Effect of
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(1) Vision, planning and management
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λ10 - 0.69 0.83 ε5 14.50 * - 0.32
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Bailey, G. D. (1997). What technolo
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Stegall, P. (1998). The principal:
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instruction has studied the student
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The results of this study suggest t
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Hsu, Y.-C., Ho, H. N. J., Tsai, C.-
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domains. Five research questions we
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Research sample groups (4) Faculty
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13. Policies, Social Culture Impact
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Non-Specified Others Engineering &
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(AR = -2.1) (n = 7) 2. Non-specifie
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(n): Total number of articles Resea
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Compared to the publications in 200
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Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPAC
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