The Social Network Addiction Scale: A Scale Development Study

The aim of this study is to develop a scale to determine attitudes towards social networks. During the development phase of the scale, 55 items were created and presented to experts. Experts demand that 2 items be removed from the scale. The 53 item draft scale was applied to 270 persons as a preliminary experiment group in the age range of 18-53 years. In order to determine the validity of the structure of the scale, exploratory factor analysis was carried out by analysis of basic components. As a result of these analyzes, a scale consisting of 40 items which explains 56.650% of total variance with 6 factors (request, preference, communication, affection, socialization, friendship) was obtained. The reliability coefficient of all the scales was Cronbach alpha = .95. As a result of the preliminary test, it was revealed that the items were understandable and that a few expressions were required. By making the necessary changes ,the data collection device has the final structure .The scale's average was calculated as 3.13, median 3.20 and standard deviation .72. Having the KMO value above .90 , datas are considered to be so convenient for factor analysis. Moreover, after Barlett's test X-2 value 7164.145 (p <.001) indicates that the scale is convenient for factor analysis. The results obtained prove scale to be valid and reliable.