New Styles of Human Communication in the Cyber Space: Threats and Opportunities of Mobile Social Networks

The emergence of any communication medium in the society has interwoven positive and negative applications, overlooking any of which can cause serious damages in the society. Mobile social networks are no exception. This study has tried to explore new communication styles in the cyber space in order to understand such positive and negative aspects. We have used surveying to reach the statistical population, being the residents of the city of Tehran, who are 15 years or older and use mobile social networks. The results show that mobile social networks act as complementary and supportive means of human communications and play a significant role in the openness of the users. Moreover, based on the results of this study the users face limitations in their interactions and they are deprived of constructive features of communication such as face-to-face interaction as well as reading books and doing exercise.