Personality Traits, Gender, Frequency of Internet Use as Predictors of Turkish Teenagers’ Internet Addiction

 

Abstract

In the current study, the associations between personality traits including extroversion, neuroticism, conscientiousness, agreeableness, open to experience, gender, frequency of Internet use, and teenagers’ Internet addiction were explored. Participants in the study were 409 teenage high school students (289 female, 120 male:13 to 18 years old) in Turkey. The participants completed the Demographics Questionnaire prepared by the authors, the Big Five Inventory and Young Internet Addiction Test – Short Form to collect the research data. It was found out that FIU, neuroticism, conscientiousness and agreeableness explained 29.8% of the variance in adolescent Internet Addiction. Neuroticism was the most significant variable linked with teenagers’ Internet addiction. However, gender (male vs female), extroversion and openness to experience were not significant predictors of teenagers’ Internet addiction. At the end of the paper, the limitations were stated and suggestions for future studies were made. The research findings emphasize the significance of teenage Internet addiction in terms of teenagers’ personality traits.