The Digital Game Addiction Status of the Studentsin High School Institutions


Göldağ B.

International Child and Information Safety Congress“Digital Games”, Ankara, Turkey, 11 - 13 April 2018, pp.17-18

  • Publication Type: Conference Paper / Summary Text
  • City: Ankara
  • Country: Turkey
  • Page Numbers: pp.17-18
  • Inonu University Affiliated: Yes

Abstract

The goal of the present research is to investigate the digital game addiction status of

the students in high school institutions. The research was conducted in a relational screening

model. The universe of the research is composed of high school students in nine, ten and

eleventh grades of public schools in Yeşilyurt and Battalgazi, Malatya districts in the

academic year of 2017-2018.

Layered sampling method was used in the selection of the sample. The sample of 342

students includes 152 students at general high school education institutions and 190 at

vocational and technical high school education institutions.

In order to determine the digital game addictions of the students; Lemmens and his/her

colleagues used the Game Addiction Scale translated into Turkish by Irmak and Erdoğan to

determine the problematic digital gaming behaviors of adolescents aged between 12 and 18

and by validity and reliability studies. The scale is a seven-item short form of the GAS (Game

Addiction Scale) -21, consisting of seven sub dimensions and a total of 21 items. To

determine whether a person is addicted to a game, two monothetical and polythetical

formats are used. According to the monothetical form, if the person gives 7 points to 3

(sometimes) and over, the risk is defined as high-risk game addict, if he/she gives a rating of

at least 4 to 3 (sometimes) and over according to the polythetical form.

The hypothesis of normality for difference analysis was examined in all subgroups;

the data were found to carry the normal distribution feature (skewness and kurtosis

coefficients ± 1). For this reason, parametric tests were used in the analyzes. Data obtained

in the study were analyzed using independent sample t-test, one-way analysis of variance

(ANOVA). Significance level was taken as 0.05.

According to the newly obtained results in the research; 19.6% of the students who

participated in the survey are digital game addicts.

There was no significant difference in the level of digital game addiction among the

students according to the sex, the school they attended, the class they were learning, the

games their families played and the time they controlled the playing time.

There was a significant difference in the level of digital game addiction among the

students in terms of the degree of dependence of digital game relative to having computer,

having fixed internet connection, having mobile phone, internet on mobile phone, mother

education, parent education, family income situation and digital game playing time.

According to the possession of a computer; the average score of the digital game

addiction of students who have a computer is higher than the average of students who do

not have a computer. According to the situation of having fixed internet connection; students with a fixed

internet connection at home had a higher average score of digital game addiction than

students who did not have a fixed internet connection.

According to the possession of mobile phone; students with mobile phones have

higher average scores of digital game addiction than students who do not have a mobile

phone.

According to the situation of internet in the mobile phone; the average scores of

digital game addiction scores of students with internet on mobile phone were higher than

those of non-internet students on mobile phone.

According to mother education status; the average score of the digital game

addiction scores of the students whose mothers having high education level was higher than

the students whose mothers having low education level.

According to father's educational status; the average scores of the digital game

addiction scores of the students whose father having high education level were higher than

those of the students whose father education level was low.

According to family income situation; the average scores of digital game addiction

scores of the students having high family income were higher than those of family having

low and middle students.

According to playing time; as the duration of playing increases, the average score of

the students' digital game addiction scores also increases.