Abstract:

With the COVID-19 pandemic, lockdowns and bans have made the usage of the internet an important status in terms of daily life and business life of individuals. In this article, the internet usage practices of the administrative staff, who are working at Necmettin Erbakan University, in their daily lives and working lives during pandemic process have been searched. Advantages and disadvantages appear with remote working process have been attempted to be discovered through a qualitative fieldwork. Within the process of remote and hybrid working, individuals had to spend much more time on the internet and use some of the applications and contents, which they had not used before pandemic, as the requirement of their jobs. Thematic analysis was maintained on the field data collected by means of qualitative interviews applied on 18 participants working in the administrative units of the university. In consequence of this analysis, it was detected that the internet usage of administrative staff during pandemic process mostly realized through mobile phones. It was observed that mostly used mobile applications were food and shopping applications, and online chats with the family members and social environment became a routine. On the other hand, it was discovered that remote working through the internet was perceived as an advantage in terms of reducing the risk of infection, and a disadvantage because of disappearing the boundaries between domestic life and working life. The article is the first study in Turkish literature in which the Internet usage practices of university administrative personnel based on pandemic-caused lockdown and remote working are attempted to be discovered.

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