Explaining of the Relation between Internet Addiction and Social Trust: A Case Study on Kashan University Students in 1390

Social trust, a basis of social capital, is the most important concept in contemporary social science. Taking evolutions and complexities of contemporary world into consideration, this concept is of a significant importance in social research. In other words, information and communication advances, especially Internet, have had tremendous effects on different dimensions of individual and social life. In this field, thinkers such as Giddens, Putnam and Fukuyama have stressed on contribution of new communication technology like Internet to social capital and social trust. The primary aim of the present paper is to study relations between Internet addiction and social trust. It is a survey study and data collection is done through questionnaires. Reliability and validity of measuring variables, i.e. Internet addiction and social trust variable, were tested through Cronbach’s Alpha Coefficient. The resulted figures were respectively %85 and %82, confirming reliability and validity. Statistical population of the research included Kashan University students in 1389-90 educational year. Using stratified random sampling as well as Cochran sampling formula, 370 subjects were chosen as sample population. Findings show that there is a significant relation between internet addiction and social trust. Moreover, statistical results of Pierson correlation coefficient, regression analysis and path analysis confirm the significant correlation between research variables.