INVESTIGATION OF THE EFFECTS OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS' DIGITAL ADDICTIONS ON SOCIAL ANXIETY LEVELS

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the digital dependence levels and social anxiety of university students in terms of various variables and to determine whether students' digital dependence level has an effect on their social anxiety levels. The sample of the study consists of 1104 students, 649 women and 455 men, studying at Sivas Cumhuriyet University in the fall semester of 2019-2020 academic year. Random sampling method, which is among the screening models, was used in the research. The "Digital Dependence Scale" and the "Social Anxiety Scale" were used to obtain the data. While the skewness and kurtosis values were taken into consideration in the normality test of the data, in the analysis phase, independent samples t test, one-way ANOVA, Tukey tests and path analysis methods under structural equation modeling were used. As a result of the research, while significant differences were found in digital dependence sub-factors of university students in terms of gender, class level, place of residence and high school type graduated, no significant difference was observed in sub-factors of social anxiety. As a result of the path analysis, it was determined that the model had a good fit with the data at an acceptable level, however, it was concluded that students' digital dependence levels did not have a significant effect on their social anxiety levels.