Akademisyenlerin Sosyal Medya Bağımlılık Düzeylerinin Belirlenmesine Yönelik Bir Saha Araştırması: Geçerlilik ve Güvenilirlik Çalışması

Objective: The main purpose of this research was to find out the social media addiction levels of academicians and to reveal whether the scale used is a valid and reliable scale. In addition, it is another aim of the study to determine which variables differ in terms of social media addictions of academics whose social media addiction levels are determined. Methods: A total of 430 academicians, 199 of whom were females and 231 males, participated in this study. The validity and reliability of the scale were tested by performing exploratory and confirmatory factor analyzes and reliability analyzes on the data collected from the academicians reached by the online survey method. Then, the differences of the factors, whose validity and reliability were ensured by using parametric techniques, according to demographic variables were examined. Results: The exploratory factor analysis done on the data collected from academicians reached by online survey method, showed that the scale had four sub-factors called Virtual Tolerance (Slacking), Virtual Interaction, Virtual Communication, and Emotional State. Obtained sub-factors were subjected to confirmatory factor analysis and it was seen that the fit indices gave good results. Since the Cronbach's alpha value, which was used to measure the reliability of the scale, was also high, the scale used to measure the social media addiction levels of academicians was found to be valid and reliable. The differences of the factors that were found to be valid and reliable according to demographic variables were examined. Conclusions: The result of the analysis demonstrated that addiction levels of single academicians were more than that of the married academicians; young or old academicians’ social media addiction levels were more than that of middle-aged academicians. Clearly, this study revealed that as the academic title increases, social media addiction levels of academicians decreases.