Media Literacy and its relationship with the reduction of the harm caused by using social networks based on mobile phones (Case study: the age group of 15-30 years old in Hamadan)

The aim of this research was to identify the relationship between the level of media literacy and the reduction of the use of mobile social networks in the age group of 15-30 years old in Hamadan. In this research, a descriptive correlation study has been used. The statistical population of this research is the age group of 15-30 years old in Hamadan. By means of targeted sampling and by using the Cochran formula, a number of 400 subjects have been selected. In this study, two questionnaires (media literacy scale questionnaire and standard questionnaire on the use of cybercrime) have been used to collect required data. To determine their validity, the content validity has been used and also the coefficient Cronbach's alpha was used in order to obtain their reliability. Their values ​​were calculated to be 0.93 and 0.92 in the questionnaires, respectively. In this research, descriptive and inferential statistics such as mean, percentage, Kalmogrup-Smirnov test, single-group T-test, Pearson correlation test and multivariate regression have been used in SPSS software in order to test the hypotheses. The t-test results of single-group-t showed that the media literacy rate of the studied age group was 3.16 and the average of the harm caused by mobile-based social networks was 2.78. Also, the results of Pearson correlation test indicate that by increasing the level of literacy of the age group, the level of damage from the use of mobile-based social networks decreases.