Media Literacy and Awareness of the Social Network Damages

The main objective of the study was to investigate the relationship between media literacy and awareness of the social network damages of Regional Information Center of Science and Technology (RICeST) and Islamic World Science Citation Center (ISC). Due to the nature of the study descriptive- correlation survey method has been used. For data collection two researcher made questionnaire has been used. The populations of the study indicate all staffs of RICeST and ISC including 160 persons that based on simple random sampling and with use of Krejcie and Morgan table, 113 persons were selected as the sample population. Results showed that the media literacy skills of respondents has been higher than average. There is a positive and significant relationship between media literacy skills and their use of social networks. Also there is a positive and significant relationship between staff’s media literacy and their awareness of the social network damages (cultural, social, family and mental-individual). In today's digital and informational world, the ability of people to have access to new skills and new literacies, such as media literacy, is of particular importance. They need to learn these skills so that they can use the appropriate criteria to evaluate social networks and the news and information contained therein, and use accurate and effective information for their decisions.