Examination of The Relationship Between University Students' Alexithymia Symptoms, Personality Types and Internet Use Behaviors

Abstract

The main aim of this study is to examine the relationship between university students' alexithymia symptoms, personality traits, and internet use attitudes. The predictive power of personality types and internet use behaviors on alexithymia levels was examined. In addition, differences in the scores of alexithymia and personality types according to various demographic variables were examined. The study group consisted of 322 undergraduate students studying at four different universities in Istanbul. The Toronto Alexithymia Scale and the Eysenck Personality Brief Scale were used to collect data. According to the results obtained from the study, there was a significant relationship between alexithymia scores and personality types, while neuroticism and extraversion were found to have significant predictive power on alexithymia scores. Neuroticism and extraversion were found to have significant predictive power on alexithymia scores. Psychoticism, lying, duration of social network use, most used social network, and purpose of internet use variables did not have significant predictive power. It was found that women's alexithymia scale extroverted thinking scores were significantly higher, while men's personality traits lying scores were significantly higher.