Technology Use in Libraries and the Reading Habits of Ninth Grade Students: Example of the Sahinbey District of Gaziantep
Ozan KırtayTechnology has positive and negative effects on individuals depending on how it is used. The unconscious and excessive use of technological items for entertainment may cause individuals to sacrifice time they might otherwise spend in the library reading. In this article, the relationship between technology addiction and the reading habits of ninth-grade students studying in the Şahinbey district of Gaziantep province was examined. For this purpose, research method was determined as the predictive correlational research. In the study, two scales and a questionnaire were applied to 1,075 students in the spring semester of the 2019–2020 academic year, and the results were analyzed with the SPSS 22.0 and Mplus 8.0 package programs with 934 valid forms. The results indicate that there is a negative relationship between technology addiction and reading habits, and technology addiction has a 5% effect on reading habits. The findings also suggest that female students have stronger reading habits than male students, and they use the Internet more often for educational purposes. Conversely, male students spend more time on online games than female students. Moreover, we found no significant difference between male and female students in terms of technology use.
9. Sınıf Öğrencilerinin Kütüphanelerde Teknoloji Kullanımı Ve Okuma Alışkanlıkları: Gaziantep İli Şahinbey İlçesi Örneği
Ozan KırtayTeknolojinin kullanım biçimine göre bireyler üzerinde olumlu ve olumsuz etkileri bulunmaktadır. Teknolojik öğelerin eğlence işlevinin bilinçsiz ve fazla kullanımı, bireylerin kütüphane kullanımlarına ve okuma alışkanlıklarına yeterince zaman ayıramamalarına yol açabilmektedir. Bu makalede Gaziantep ilinin Şahinbey ilçesinde öğrenim gören ortaöğretim 9. sınıf öğrencilerinin teknoloji bağımlılığı ve okuma alışkanlıkları arasındaki ilişki incelenmiştir. Bu amaç doğrultusunda araştırmanın yöntemi yordayıcı korelasyonel araştırma olarak belirlenmiştir. Çalışmada 2019-2020 eğitim-öğretim yılının bahar döneminde 1075 öğrenciye iki ölçek ve bir anket formu uygulanmış ve sonuçlar geçerli olan 934 form üzerinden SPSS 22.0 ve Mplus 8.0 paket programları ile analiz edilmiştir. Araştırma sonucunda teknoloji bağımlılığı ve okuma alışkanlığı arasında negatif yönlü bir ilişkinin olduğu ve teknoloji bağımlılığının okuma alışkanlığı üzerinde yüzde 5 oranında bir etkisinin olduğu görülmüştür. Çalışmada kız öğrencilerin erkek öğrencilere göre daha fazla okuma alışkanlığına sahip olduğu ve interneti daha fazla eğitsel amaçlı kullandıkları anlaşılmıştır. Erkek öğrencilerin ise çevrimiçi oyunlara kız öğrencilere göre daha fazla zaman ayırdıkları görülmüştür. Ayrıca araştırmada teknoloji kullanımı açısından kız ve erkek öğrenciler arasında anlamlı bir fark olmadığı tespit edilmiştir.
Technological elements have both positive and negative effects on individuals according to their usage patterns. The unconscious and excessive use of technology for entertainment can cause individuals to sacrifice the time they might otherwise spend in the library reading. In this article, the relationship between technology addiction and reading habits is emphasized, considering that technology addiction, which may occur as a result of unconscious use of technological elements, directly affects reading habits. The aims of the study include determining how long students spend on the computer/Internet, whether they use the Internet and social media to obtain information, whether the presence of technological elements influences their reading habits and the extent to which technologies such as digital publications and e-book readers feature characteristics that can improve people’s lives. For the development of an information-based society, it is also important that individuals have a habit of reading, know how to access information from using technology, and have a habit of using libraries. Therefore, this study also focuses on students’ library usage habits. In this article, we examined ninthgrade students studying in the Şahinbey District of Gaziantep Province in Turkey. In the study, we evaluated the extent to which students use school and public libraries, why they use them, and their expectations from school or public libraries, as well as students’ technology use in libraries and their reading habits. In the research, two scales and a questionnaire were applied to 1,075 students in the spring semester of the 2019–2020 academic year, and the results were analyzed with the SPSS 22.0 and Mplus 8.0 package programs with 934 valid forms. The results highlight a negative relationship between technology addiction and reading habits, and technology addiction has a 5% effect on reading habits. Furthermore, female students have stronger reading habits than male students and use the Internet more often for educational purposes, and male students spent more time on online games than female students. Moreover, no significant difference was found between male and female students in terms of technology use. The importance of teaching information literacy as a course to secondary school students to reduce technology addiction and to enable young people to use the Internet consciously is one of the goals of this study. In this study, the participants mostly preferred school libraries (69%), followed by public libraries (53.7%). The necessity of teachers and administrators informing students to increase their library usage habits and library membership also became apparent through this study. Examining the expectations of students from school libraries— plentiful electronic broadcast access options (18%), digital infrastructure and resources (15%), and computers with Internet access (12%)—underscores the importance of advancing the enriched libraries project developed in Turkey. When the library usage habits of students are examined, the fact that 37% say that they never go to libraries but actually go several times a year indicates that students make little use of the opportunities at libraries. Therefore, the importance of experts working in the field of information and document management to transform libraries from the classical library and turning them into activity-oriented attraction centers with intense technological possibilities is notable. Considering students’ views on reading books, the low rate of those who answered “none” (11%) to the option “How long do you read books a day on average?” suggests that students have regular book-reading habits. Nevertheless, the reason for the small amount of time they spend reading each day is related to the excessive time they spend using technology. According to our study, 53% of students spend 3 hours or more a day on the Internet, whereas the rate of students who read 3 hours or more a day is 9%. The fact that students spend a great deal of time on computers and the Internet is also highlighted through the answers to the following question: “What do you do most in your free time?” Among the respondents, 73% chose “I spend time on the computer/ internet.” In contrast, only 53.5% reported reading books, magazines, newspapers, and so forth. The results of this study indicate that the rate of students using the Internet and social media to obtain information was high, but due to high rates of use of entertainment functions, which are among the available options, it was determined that the participants could not use the Internet and social media at sufficient levels to obtain information. Therefore, conscious Internet use education should be provided to students to address this issue.
