UNIVERSITY STUDENTS’ METAPHORICAL PERCEPTIONS OF ‘‘INTERNET” CONCEPT

In today’s world, Internet has become the most significant tool for communication and sharing. As Internet usage style and its environment has increased so much, many aspects of human life has been affected. This effect can be felt at any time of the life. Especially with the excessive increase of the social media use in human life, this effect has been completely clarified. Naturally, the opportunities and the environment that Internet provides have led to many positive changes in human life and caused improvement in the quality of life. However, problems that are because of unhealthy use has arisen more and more, and also brought new debates. Thus, Internet addiction concept has become an important phenomenon nowadays. Therefore, being healthy Internet users for young adults who has the higher Internet usage rate have become crucial for their mental health and healthy development. Because of this situation, there is a huge need to determine the meaning and the importance of Internet concept in young adults’ lives. The current study which has been carried out with 168 students aims to reveal the metaphorical perceptions about Internet concept of university students. In the study that was conducted by qualitative research method, the students were asked to complete the statement “Internet is like… because…”. In this context, the data was thematized through content analysis. The findings of the study have indicated that the participants used total 81 metaphors for Internet concept. These metaphors have been collected under six different themes in terms of their common characteristics. These themes have been determined as the heads of “Internet as a tool to reach information”, “Internet as an environment that includes everything”, “Internet as an environment that makes you a loser”, “Internet as an indispensable tool”, “Internet as a relieving environment” and “Internet as a beneficial tool if it is used correctly”, respectively.