Fear of Crime on Social Media

Social media has become an integral part of people's lives today. Facing the news and the rapid growth of social media has caused many problems for users. These media outlets can direct public opinion by emphasizing specific and major aspects of some fears and panic. The purpose of this study was to investigate the social factors affecting the fear of social media users in Isfahan.

In terms of its objectives this study is of an applied research type and in terms of data collection procedure it is a survey study, and the data collection tool is questionnaire. The statistical population in this study is the citizens over 15 years old in Isfahan city. The sample size was set as 459 individuals using Sample Power software. The sampling method in this study is quota. Amos and SPSS software were used for data analysis.

The findings of this study show that the variables of sense of social disorganization, formal social control, users' participation and their trust in social media and their age and gender have a significant relationship with users' fear of crime. Structural equation modeling shows that the social disorganization variable (0.57) has the highest amount of variance of users' fear of crime and the users' participation in social media (0.14) has explained the least amount of variance of users' fear of crime.

Much of the daily conversation on social media is about the dangers and anxieties that threaten our lives. Seeing the scenes of murder and violence on social media causes the fear of the act of associating with the victim. According to the results of this study, it can be said that the presence of people on social media affects users' fear of crime.