Investigation of problematic internet use behaviors of athletes in terms of personality traits

Abstract

The aim of study is to reveal the relationship between the personality traits of athletes and problematic internet use (PIU), and in this way, to reveal which personality traits athletes tend to PIU. A total of 428 athletes, 204 (47.7%) males and 224 (52.3%) females, who were engaged in amateur and professional level sports in various sports clubs, participated in the study. “Internet Addiction Scale” was used to determine the PIU status of the participants and “Five Factor Model of Personality Scale” was used to determine the personality characteristics. The stepwise regression method was used to determine the level of predicting PIU of personality traits. As a result of the analyzes, it was determined to what extent the variables of extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, neuroticism, openness, and gender predicted PIU and as a result of this process, R = .798, R2 = .637. As a result, it was seen that 63.7% of the total variance in the PIU of the athletes was explained by the personality traits. © 2021 The Author(s). This open access article is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.