Engl. transl.: Computer Games and Addiction: A Field Study on University Students

Technological developments in the last few decades, has caused major changes in the structure and functioning of the mass communication tools. Virtual space interactions growing up with the internet and intense bombardment of information, has constructed a new kind of society-media relationship. The computer games industry has improved during this period and has transformed to industry which is almost indispensable especially for young people’s everyday practices in the world. Accordingly, this study which aims examine the computer game addiction of the university youth was carried out in the sample of Aksaray University. Survey that prepared with adapting Young’s (1998) internet addiction scale, applied 435 students which selected by purposive sampling. It was found that 1 out of every 5 students were under the threat of gaming addiction. In addition, the level of male student’s addiction is higher than those of girl students. Addiction increases along with mother education level and family income level. While expenditure for the game and interest in games with violence are triggering game addiction, inability to control the play time is increasing the risk of addiction.

"The results obtained in this study show that male university students are more seriously exposed to the effects of computer games than females. For example, boys show more interest in violent games such as action-adventure, strategy and online games than girls. In this direction, action-adventure is among the most played game genres. On the other hand, 1 out of every 5 university students is at risk of game addiction. 1 out of every 3 people spend hours at the beginning of the game, at least 1 hour every day. Accordingly, computer games are an indispensable part of life for an important part of university students. Other statistics show that the participants in the study had difficulties in controlling the time in the game. While girls see computer games as a leisure time activity, the situation is quite different for boys. Men construct virtual identities through digital games, which is thought to cause problematic identities." (Çavuş et al, 2016, pp.284-285)(translated by the coder)