prevalence of the pathological internet use in a sample of turkish school adolescents

background: the internet addiction, also described as pathological internet use (piu), is conceptualized by an individual's in­ability to control his or her use of the internet, which eventually causes marked distress and/or functional impairment. the aim of the present study was to investigate the prevalence of the piu among adolescence, in relation to different internet ac­tivities, and to excessive use of the internet in samsun, turkey. methods: a cross-sectional study was conducted between october 1 and 31, 2005 in samsun, turkey. in total, 1315 high school students (760 male, 555 female; mean age, 15.2±1.1 years) were recruited. a self-administered questionnaire and young's internet addiction scale (ias) was applied to the participants. results: although only 506 (38.5%) of the participants have a computer at their home, total 1054 (80.2%) used a computer at home or public, such as an internet cafe. eight hundred and ten (76.9%) of the participants, used a computer, to access to the internet. of the internet users, 10(1.2%), 161 (19.9%) and 639 (78.9%) were internet addicts (ias), possible internet ad­dicts (pas), and nonaddicts (nas), respectively. it is found that males were more likely than females to be pathological us­ers in this study ( p < 0.05). conclusion: our results still demonstrate that the internet plays an important role in the lives of turkish adolescents.