Abstract:

This research examined the effect of social media addiction (SMA), under four factors "mood modification", "relapse", "conflict" “occupation”, on the depression levels (CES-D) of tourist guidance undergraduates in Turkey’s higher education tourism context. The study used a survey method with the participation of 404 tourist guidance undergraduates from randomly chosen tourism faculties. Frequency analysis, simple linear regression analysis and multiple regression analysis were performed on the collected data, and it was found with the simple linear regression analysis that SMA and CES-D are positively correlated. When the sub-scales of SMAS were submitted for multiple regression analysis, it was found that the sub-scale of the "Conflict" was positively correlated with participants’ depression levels whereas the sub-scale of the "Mood Modification” was found to be negatively correlated with participants' depression levels. The subscales “Relapse” and “Occupation” were found not to be significantly correlated with the participants’ depression levels. The current study produced original findings providing empirical data for the literature regarding Social Media Addiction (SMA) and its effect on depression among tourist guidance undergraduates as well as some theoretical and practical implications for the curriculum to be developed in tourist guidance departments of Tourism Faculties in Turkey for more effective management of students’ academic performance and achievement during their undergraduate education.

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