School Attachment and Video Game Addiction of Adolescents with Divorced vs. Married Parents

As in all societies, one of the central issues in our society is the adolescents' problems and psychological conditions. Even children with a soft temperament may have their adolescence as troubled and problematic. Especially if the parents of these adolescents are divorced, this process is experienced as a more difficult and problematic process for adolescents. In this process, the academic process is experienced and there are problems in the field of school attachment. One of the central problems of today is Video Game Addiction. This problematic situation in children and adults has become a more central problem for adolescents. Many parents mention that adolescents have withdrawn themselves in the social environment, that their academic success has declined and that they have Video Game Addiction. Especially the divorced parents stated that their adolescents had problems in this area. For this reason, this study aimed to examine the areas of school attachment and Video Game Addiction of adolescents with divorced parents or with married parents. Descriptive screening method was used in the study. The study group was attended by 209 high school and secondary school students receiving education in İstanbul in 2018as 102of them were the adolescents with divorced parents and 107 of them were the adolescents whose parents are not divorced. At the end of the study, the levels of school attachment and gaming addiction of the general adolescents do not change according to whether the parents of the adolescents are divorced or their parents are married. In terms of gaming addiction, when the results were analyzed according to gender, it was determined that boys' gaming addiction scores were higher than girls. Adolescents' internet usage time increased to 5 hours and more, game addicts increased as a result. When the levels of Video Game Addiction of the adolescents with divorced parents are examined, it is concluded that Video Game Addiction varies according to gender and that men have higher level of Video Game Addiction than girls. Internet, Social Media Use and Game Addition of Adolescents In the study of Dursun and Eraslan-Çap (2018), it was determined that the reasons of adolescents to apply to the Internet are to use social media, to do homework, to play game and to chat. In the study, it was seen that adolescents frequently prefer internet to play games. In particular, a large proportion of adolescents were found using the mobile phone to the Internet. In the studies of Yalçın Irmak and Erdoğan titled “Digital Video Game Addiction of Adolescent and Young Adults” in 2015, it was found that digital games were used as a popular and widespread entertainment tool among the young and adolescents. They emphasized that uncontrolled violence and other content of digital games threaten their mental health. Educational, instructive and developer digital games can contribute to the development of adolescents if they are played within appropriate time measures and under control. In the studies on internet addiction conducted with secondary school and high school students in Sakarya, it was determined that the two-thirds of the participants are the normal internet user, and one third of them are the internet addicts (4.1%) and internet addiction risk is (28.5%). Boys and secondary school students were more at risk of internet addiction than girls and high school students (Taylan, Işık, 2015). In a study conducted by Tas in 2018, a positive correlation was found between internet addiction and psychological symptoms. At the same time, parental attitudes were related to internet addiction and psychological symptoms in adolescents. Besides, it was concluded that internet access for games, entertainment and chat was related to internet addiction. In the area of class level and age and psychological symptoms, the results were found to be related to each other. In the study of Taylan and Işık (2018), the reasons of using the internet more than three hours a day for the middle school and high school students in the city center of Kocaeli is mostly the social media, chat-chat, series, film, video viewing and uploading purposes. In this study, they obtained the result that two-thirds of the students were normal, one-third of them were under risk and problematic Internet users. In this study, in the area of gender variability, males were found to use internet more problematic and in terms of age, the ones between the ages of 13 and 15 were found to use internet more problematic than the ones who are older than 16 years old. In addition, as the time spent on the internet, social media and digital games increased, the TOJET: The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology – April 2019, volume 18 issue 2 Copyright © The Turkish Online Journal of Educational Technology 94 possibility of problematic internet usage was increased. In the study of Anlı (2018) on high school students' relationship between interpersonal sensitivity and internet addiction in terms of various variables, it was found that there was a significant and positive relationship between interpersonal sensitivity and internet addiction levels. It was found that internet addiction levels showed significant differences in terms of gender, but did not differ significantly in terms of perceived income level and parental attitudes. School Attachment and Academic Success of Adolescents Griffiths (2010) emphasizes that there is little information about the long-term effects of regular computer game play on the social development while indicating that the computer game is a popular leisure activity. In a study conducted with 144 undergraduate students, the relationship between students' play behavior and social insufficiency is frequently investigated. In the social status questionnaire designed to detect social insufficiency, the aim was to reveal the frequency of computer game play behaviors. As a result of the study, high frequency computer game players have found that they often show more anxiety than low frequency game players. In describing this result, the possible explanations for this relationship explain the high frequency of computer games that endanger the acquisition of social skills during childhood and adolescence. In divorced-family adolescents, being addicted to the internet brings together Video Game Addiction. In general, people are surprised by the attitude of adolescents towards divorce. They think that adolescents are old enough to understand their parents. The psychological pressure of divorce on adolescents is not taken into consideration. Normal concerns experienced during adolescence are strengthened by parental divorce. Parents' divorce status creates anger and tense feeling for adolescents (Wallerstein and Blakeslee, 1989, p. 336). Or, in the divorce of parents, some other adolescents take on too much responsibility, and some adolescents complete the school tasks and become dominant in many decision-making areas. This may lead to the adolescent maturation, but the risk here is that they may miss the period of normal adolescence they should have experienced (Wallerstein and Blakeslee, 1989, p. 336). In the case assessing the divorce of parents by means of gender differences, Wallerstein and Blakeslee (1989) concluded that girls and adolescents handle the parental divorces more positive in terms of social, emotional and success areas than boys and adolescents. In the field of school achievement, adolescents who did not have any problems experienced decrease in success at the period when their parents are divorced. In addition to the success decreases in school, adolescent males showed aggressive behaviors. It is observed that there are problems especially in the field of school attachment (Wallerstein and Blakeslee, 1989, p. 95). In the study of Wallerstein and Blakeslee (1980), it was found that adolescents also feel upon their parents divorced as they left them alone. In this process, the success of the children is generally decreases. Children also have a problem of concentrating and focusing on lessons due to the divorce of parents. This causes their grades to decrease. The decrease in success of children at school is due to the fact that their minds are engaged in divorce. Even if parental divorce is experienced before adolescence, the negativity remaining on the child is seen again during adolescence, especially when the level of school achievement decreases, especially boys show this decrease. Parental support in this field plays an active role in the re-education of children. (Figdor, 1997, p. 71). In this process, adolescents find themselves in social media or on the computer to play most of their time in order to avoid problems or to forget. Bozkurt, Sahin and Zoroglu (2016) stated as a result of their reviews on internet addiction and current studies that Internet use has become an indispensable part of life, the pathological use of the Internet has begun to lead to internet addiction which can be defined as new addiction type and the long – time uncontrolled use of internet may cause individuals to have physical, psychological, social, cognitive, social, cognitive health problems and their lives are adversely affected. It is stated that, in your country, this addiction is more prevalent in young people and children who are more dominant in technology. The study aimed to investigate the areas of school attachment and Video Game Addiction of adolescents with Divorced vs. Married parents. The following questions have been sought. 1. Is there a significant difference between the adolescents with Divorced vs. Married parents in terms of school attachment? 2. Is there a significant difference between the adolescents with Divorced vs. Married parents in terms of Video Game Addiction? 3. Is there a significant difference between the adolescents with Divorced vs. Married parents in terms of school attachment and Video Game Addiction? 4. Do the le