THE PROBLEMATIC INTERNET USAGE AND INFORMATION OBESITY IN THE INFORMATION AGE: APPLICATION OF THE PROBLEMATIC INTERNET USAGE SCALE TO THE UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

The contributions of internet and social media to democracy, freedom of expression and political participation have been praised by many researchers; however the problematic usages of these communication channels and issues such as information obesity are mostly ignored. Internet and social media platforms satisfy the psychological and social needs of the people. Individuals constantly engage in reading, watching, interacting with others and producing contents on these communication channels. All these activities increase the amount of information generated. The aim of this study is to find out whether the individuals use this communication medium healthily or not, and reveal the effects of functional disorders such as 'information obesity'. In the study, firstly the concepts of internet and social media are explained, then the functional disorders such as information obesity are discussed. In the study, the problematic internet usage tendencies of the participants are measured by a field research. According to the findings, the participants tend to use internet problematically. Also, it is observed that there is a significant relationship between problematic internet usage level and gender, it is fount out that the problematic internet usage of the male participants is higher. It is argued that this may lead to information obesity as well as many other functional disorders.