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Examination of the studies on technology addiction published between 2008-

2016

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DOI: 10.21506/j.ponte.2017.5.41

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Vol. 73 | No. 5 | May 2017 International Journal of Sciences and Research

EXAMINATION OF THE STUDIES ON TECHNOLOGY ADDICTION

PUBLISHED BETWEEN 2008-2016

Hüseyin Bicen
Ataturk Faculty of Education, Near East University, North Cyprus, via Mersin 10, Turkey,
[email protected]

Ahmet Arnavut
Ataturk Faculty of Education, Near East University, North Cyprus, via Mersin 10, Turkey,
0090 (533) 842-40-77
[email protected]

ABSTRACT

Within the development of technology manner, technology addiction, which has become
widespread and still continuing to expand over the globe, is genuinely affecting individuals,
mainly the youth generation in terms of social, physical and mental. The fact is that the
advanced technology has made it impossible for individuals to live without technological
devices. The study aims to guide researchers who want to study on this particular subject which
is technology addiction. A literature review was carried out in order to evaluate the existing
studies, to identify current reviews, journal articles and ongoing research on technology and
technology addiction. Articles published in 2008 up to 2016 were appraised through
scholar.google.com.tr, Science Direct, ISI Web of Science, Assosindex, Ebsco,
www.ulakbim.gov.tr. The results were categorised according to the year of publication, the
country of publication, the research area, the aim and the method of the study.

Keywords: technology, smartphone, internet, television, gaming, addiction, education.

INTRODUCTION
Today, with the development of technology, new opportunities and possibilities have been
created which will facilitate our work in every area of our life (Lamb & Akbulut, (2013).
Technology is, in fact, much more than the technology that everybody uses daily, such as lap-
tops, smartphones, tablets or the internet. But the focus here is on in relation to technology will
be internet, laptops, tablets and mobile phones, which are the first to come to mind and are
linked to education, even in some countries where advanced education is integrated (Laborda,
Uzunboylu & Ross, 2016).

Unfortunately, human health does not reflect positively especially when one looks at the new
generation due to the technology interest of digital natives; as technology is generally viewed
as a positive reflection of our education and life, and people have reached a level where they
can lose themselves while using or increasing the use of technology. And it is not hard to see
the negative aspects (Echeburúa & De Corral, 2010; Atal & Usluel, 2011).

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Today, technology is developing rapidly and taking a greater role in our lives. In the post-World
War II period, the "defense technology" was the foreground. High-tech products according to
other technology products were small, more useful, highly reliable, low cost and easy to find
(Şenel & Gençoğlu, 2013).

With the development of technology, negative aspects are as much as positive and even in some
cases, it is anxious to be exposed to negative attitudes as technology (Shahtahmasebi 2013). In
terms of the positive aspects of technology,it has brought a lot of innovation and convenience
to humans’ lives. In general, household or household washing machines or dishwashing
machines have an important place in human life (Coşkun & Yavuz, 2008). But the technological
tools that may be harmful for people and their health are the internet tools that keep them using
laptops or telephones which they constantly use during the day (Aslan, 2016). Now, the point
is that people become unable to live without such devices because everyone is communicating
or spending time with these devices (Nogueira and Moreira, 2013). As such, the increase in
interest, which is technological, has become an inevitable situation. Most people will use
technology as much as they need but they will not be ignored. In most people, one minute in a
day, they can not stay away from technology (Chóliz, Echeburúa and Labrador, 2012). In
addition, it can be said that the people who are standing in front of the television for a long time
or who have been playing games on the internet continuously, playing games or making hours
of phone calls. (Ayas, 2012).

Because of the continuous development of technology and the changing needs of individuals
almost every day, the technologies used in education are constantly changing (Efilti & Coklar,
2013; Uzunboylu & Tugun, 2016). The field where distance education has recently started to
be used is the mobile education (Uygarer, Uzunboylu & Ozdamli, 2016). In today's technology,
mobile devices are used for communication, information sharing, entertainment and education
(Soykan and Ozdamli, 2016). In general, distance learning is a training that is carried out by
using mobile tools by developing with various tools. Briefly, if we look at the recognition made;
Mobile Learning provides learner with mobile, PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) or mobile
phone training without being dependent on the class outside the classroom (Bradley, 2015; Can,
2016).

It is seen from the education integration of technology that internet is one of the most important
parts of technology. Without the Internet, none of these above would benefit from education
(Latchem, 2013; Yilmaz & Goken, 2016). The most prevalent of these dependencies is internet
addiction (Rodgers, Melioli, Laconi, Bui and Chabrol, 2013).

The internet has become an indispensable part of life nowadays with being an important
communication and information sharing tool which is frequently used in school, business and
community life (Teri and Tanıdır, 2011). People spend most of their day doing business on the
Internet, checking their e-mails, surfing, spending time on social networks or playing games.
However, some people are out of control and live in a different dimension. Since many people
use the internet as a normal part of their work and school life, it is usually difficult to separate

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them from the normal. The distinctive point here is the feeling of having to "enter the internet"
or not stopping this feeling. Those who use the Internet normally do not have this feeling and
do not neglect other areas of their lives (Arısoy, 2009).

It is also observed that these people are much more easily bored, have less ability to control
themselves, and are more easily dispersed in their work with those who think that they spend
too much time watching television and can not give up on this situation (Yeşil & Korkmaz
2008). Other results of years of studies show that those who spend a lot of time with television
are less likely to be overweight or obese than those who are less or less likely to participate in
the society, social activities are less, do not play much or no sport (Green & Fear 2008).

Another technological factor that affects the human health is the games played on game
consoles, computers or other portable technological devices, which are now very common.
While games can affect the development of children or young people in various ways, they
can bring back the personality disorders at the background of people according to their genre
(Griffiths, 2010). By looking at the past, it can observed that people only use game consoles
and computers to play games technologically, and they need these devices to play other
games also. Today, playing games with technological devices has become quite different.
In order to play digital games, it’s enough for people just to have a mobile phone. In fact,
the interest in games played on mobile phones has increased so much that people are
spending time with games which are produced by using new technologies. The latest
developments in technology have brought a new dimension to games such as virtual and
enhanced reality applications.
Along with the rapid development of technology, rapid advances in communication
technologies allow the convergence of cultures around the world. The interactions of cultures
with each other are also increasing (Karacor, 2009). As it is known, it took a very long time for
an event that took place on one side of the world in old times to reach other parts of the world,
which caused the effect of the event to decrease. But this situation is now completely reversed.
No matter where in the world the event takes place, it is heard in every region of the world in
minutes through the internet and television (Maalouf, 2009). With the development of
technology, people have changed drastically in the habits of reading news and following the
news. Created online newspapers can publish local and foreign news from news sources
instantly. In this way, people do not have to wait for the next day to be able to learn the news
in the country or abroad. In addition to online newspapers, people are also able to keep up with
daily news with our friends sharing social media sites (Ozdamli, 2013).

When considered the rapid advancement of technology in every field along with negative
aspects, innovative studies and the requirement of technology users to be knowledgeable in the
particular subject, reveals the problem of this research.

OBJECTIVE
The aim of this study is to identify trends in technology-related work in search engines and
journals published by researchers who want to work in technology-addiction and technology

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fields. Through the advancements of developing technology, new studies should be

constructed. Accordingly, the primary purpose of this research is to analyze the existing
studies in this field and then assiting the researchers, who want to study in the certain subject,
about the areas they should focus on and the way to follow.

METHOD
This research is a kind of documentary screening for the evaluation of technology dependency,
social media dependency, internet addiction, game dependency and smartphone addiction
studies in content analysis.

For this work, www.google.com, scholar.google.com, www.yahoo.com.tr, www.bing.com.tr,

www.yandex.com.tr, tez2.yok.gov.tr search engines and databases of Science Direct, ISI Web
of Science, Assosindex, Ebsco, www.ulakbim.gov.tr have been selected. As it is mentioned
above, the searches for 2008 and 2016 were done. The keywords are limited to " technology
addiction, internet addiction, game addiction, social media addiction, television addiction,
smartphone addiction". In addition, it has been noted that the selected publications are relevant
to education, while articles that are found to be out of research are not included in the search
for those that do not exactly match the content. Furthermore, various search methods were used
while scanning. A search has been made to find more specific and more efficient results by
determining the format of the results (such as .pdf, .doc, .docx) by using the quotation method
to search all the words searched as a sentence and the search method "filtype:". The criteria that
researchers consider while doing content analysis are as follows:

• Publication year
• Research area
• Country of research
• Number of researches
• Method

ANALYSIS OF DATA
Before examining the search operations from search engines and electronic databases, the
researchers used the SPSS package program to create the database for recording the criteria and
using them for analysis. All data from detailed document analyzes were recorded for each
article.

RESULTS AND COMMENTS

As a result of the surveys conducted in the journals and search engines covered by SSCI, 200
studies published in 2008 and 2016 were reached and the findings were reported according to

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the selected criteria. 42 publications incompatible with the subject were excluded from the
study. The following are the findings from the analyzes for each criterion in tables and graphs.

PUBLICATION YEAR
The number of studies on Technology Dependence is grouped for each year and is given in
the graphic below.

Articles Based on Years

40
34
35 32
30 26
25
20
15 14
15 12
10 9
10 6
5
0
2016 2015 2014 2013 2012 2011 2010 2009 2008
Figure 1 Articles by years

As it can be seen from the graph, most of the studies related to technology dependency in search
engines were chosen to be published in 2016. Search engines and databases have been given
extensive coverage of technology dependency studies for each year. When the survey was
conducted, the studies up to December 2016 were also screened and 158 studies were completed
according to the criteria. Thanks to the developing technologies, the number of researches has
increased in proportion to years.

STUDIES BY COUNTRIES
As a result of these surveys, most of the studies based in Turkey were found in accordance with
the subjects.
Table 2. Number of Articles by Countries

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Number of
Countries %
Articles
Turkey 50 31,7
U.S.A 32 20,3
China 10 6,4
Iran 9 5,6
Romania 9 5,6
Others 48 30,4
Total 158 100,0

There is an important point to be noted before starting to evaluate the above table. As mentioned
at the beginning of the work, there is an access to information from Turkey's servers
automatically (for example, when we log in to www.google.com, it is automatically forwarded
to www.google.com.tr). For this reason, it is normal that the number of studies done in Turkey
is high. These criteria should be considered and evaluated.

The United States comes after Turkey. It can be said that the United States is one of the leading
states of the world in terms of technology, which is why this result comes out. The United States
is followed by China, Iran and Romania respectively. The number of studies conducted in other
countries other than these countries is included in the other part.

RESEARCH AREAS OF THE STUDIES

As it is known, the concept of technology is a very broad concept and therefore these researches
have been done in more than one branch of technology and in the points where the technology
is combined with education. These words are also included in the research conducted because
the technology is related to technology in terms of internet, television, technological
environment such as computers, laptops, games played on the phone, social media and so on.

Table 3. Research Areas of the Studies

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Number of
Research Area %
Articles
Technology Addiction 16 10,2
Internet Addiction 30 18,9
Game Addiction 29 18,4
Smartphone Addiction 40 25,3
Social Media 30 18,9
T.v. Addiction 13 8,3
Total 158 100,0

As can be seen on Table 3, studies on technology dependency directly are generally less than
studies about the most commonly used branches of technology. The first thing that comes to
mind in terms of technology is smartphones, internet connections, lap-tops, or televisions that
are very popular in daily life. It is the most common work in the databases of smartphones that
are increasingly used as a result of investigations and in the pocket of almost everybody.
Research on social media, which connects everybody most to the smartphones via the Internet
connection, which is the connection needed to use smartphones most effectively, is in the
second and third place.

RESEARCH METHODS OF ANALYZED STUDIES

Table 4. Research models

Number of
Methodology %
Articles
Experimental 54 34,1
Literature
80 50,7
Research
Mixed 24 15,2
Total 158 100,0

Table 3 shows the preferred methods for the studies examined as a result of groupings
made. As it is seen on the table, a large part of the work has been written by the method of
literature review.

In addition, 54 experimental methods were used. The first step in integrating education
into technology or technology into education is to focus on how the environment should be. In

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doing so, it is necessary to examine the work already done in this regard. The reason for the
surplus of the scanning method can be explained in this way. Once the environment is
determined in the same way, the environment preparations are made and the experimental work
process begins. Experimental studies should be conducted to obtain the opinions of the learners
over the environment to see how well prepared media are to success.

CONCLUSIONS AND DISCUSSIONS

It has been observed in the researches how much the technology has recently been
discussed, and every day people have begun focusing more and more on this issue. Technology
is a very fast-changing subject that is changing very rapidly and it is getting difficult to follow
it day by day. Technological tools are being renewed every day and old devices are becoming
worthless in a short period of time. This research has been limited from 2008 to 2016, taking
into account that technology has become so volatile. As a result of this research, the articles
that were written before 2008 were obtained and the ones that do not meet the criteria, thus this
analysis was realized using the 158 articles that were obtained.

As can be seen in these researches, studies conducted with the fields of technology and
technology are increasing every year on a regular basis. From the beginning of 2008 until 2016,
it can be seen that the number of works carried out related to this issue increases within the
years. This shows that the technology is improving day by day and that the human life becomes
more integrated and that the new work must be done continuously.

By looking at the aspects of the studies examined in this research, it is seen that the
subject is the smartphone addiction, and this is quite natural because today smartphones and the
internet connect people to the world. Among the latest technologies, smartphones are causing
people to use the internet more and more, social media, digital games and digital media. People
can communicate with each other very easily from nearby or distant places thanks to the
smartphones and the internet. Especially for people who want to make overseas calls; the smart
phones help people through the internet especially in financial terms. Instead of communicating
via gsm operators, people can have cheap and high quality conversations with each other on the
internet by using their smartphone applications.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The following suggestions can be taken into consideration in order to make the field work more
effective and efficient:

The number of works done by this field scanning method is rather high. Therefore, it can be
thought that the subsequent experiments may be more useful.

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By organizing the necessary conferences, students should be aware of technology

dependency.The results obtained from the studies and the supporting theoretical basis should
be supported by the literature.

The work to be done in the technology field requires a certain level of literacy.
Therefore, it can be considered that the healthier results can be achieved if the groups to be
selected are university or higher.

As regards the suitability of the subject, researchers from different countries can work together
to gain knowledge about the situation in different countries, and it is possible to determine what
the innovations are in this area worldwide.

Institutions should provide opportunities for experimental work in Turkey and Cyprus.

In other areas, the importance of content analysis while presenting scientific studies and the
presentation of scientific studies in this field will guide other experts working on that field.
Technological developments have offered us virtual reality and increased reality applications
in recent years. While there are few publications on this subject as a type of addiction in
research, when it comes to the latest technologies, they are the first to come to mind. Because
of this, it is necessary to work with these technological developments in terms of being able to
use technology more efficiently and more accurately in the future years.

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