The way social networks are used; backgrounds and causes (Case Study: Youth of City of Gorgan

This paper is aimed at finding personal and social factors that influence the use of social media (networks) among the youth in the Iranian city of Gorgan. In order to find out impact of elements such as personal factors like age and gender and collective factors including social and national identity, social trust and etc. on quantity and quality in using social media. This research work is based on descriptive-survey method and the relevant data is gathered through questionnaires completed by youth within the age group of 18-30. The validity of the tools arebased on face validity and its reliability has been confirmed by Cronbach’s Alpha coefficient. The size of the sample has be determined as 380 people by using Cochran Formula. This number of individuals were selected from 18 to 30 years old Gorganies. The inferential findings had inverse (negative) relation between use of social media and social, religious and national identity. It means that increase in number of social media results in fall of social, religious and national identity and between quality of social media use and social, religious and national identity there is a positive relation. Therefore, whenever the users pay attention to their use of social media and make a conscience choice, the level of social, religious and national identity increases. In addition, by increasing the age of the users, they choose the social media and become their member in a more conscience manner.