Problematic Facebook use behavior and locus of control in physiotherapy students

BACKGROUND: Problematic Facebook use is a broader umbrella for term addictive-like symptoms, and scarce self-regulation related to Facebook use reflecting social and personal problems, and many studies have suggested that it is associated with many psychosocial problems. Locus of control (LOC) is described as a personality trait developed through social learning theory. Recently, LOC has got attention from both the patient’s and clinician’s perspectives. In addition, higher external LOC is associated with problematic Internet use. The aim was to investigate whether problematic Facebook use is associated with LOC. Four hundred twenty-one university students were enrolled in this cross-sectional study. Problematic Facebook use was determined by the Bergen Facebook Addiction Scale, and the participants were divided into two groups as neutral users and problematic users. Locus of control was assessed using the Locus of Control Scale, including subscales of personal control, belief in chance, the meaninglessness of the effortfulness, belief in fate, and belief in an unjust world. RESULTS: In total, 333 students were eligible for the study. There were 66 students with neutral Facebook use (19.8%), and the remaining (n=267) had problematic Facebook use (80.2%). No significant difference was observed in the demographic characteristic of neutral and problematic Facebook users (p>0.05). Problematic Facebook users had significantly higher scores on the meaninglessness of the effortfulness (p<0.001), belief in fate (p=0.019), and belief in an unjust world (p=0.004) compared to the neutral Facebook users. CONCLUSIONS: The results showed that the physiotherapy students having a problematic Facebook had significantly higher scores on the meaninglessness of the effortfulness, belief in fate, and belief in an unjust world compared to neutral Facebook users. All these negative thoughts might be a problem both for students themselves and their future patients.