Examining the Relationship between Virtual Social Networks and the Tendency to Ethical Anomalies

The proliferation of new media in recent decades, which has brought about a new culture for young people, has led to changes in culture and areas of adherence to values, institutions, lifestyles and the like. The purpose of the present study is to investigate the sociological factors affecting the tendency to ethical anomalies with emphasis on virtual social networks.

The method of this research is survey and the technique used is questionnaire. The statistical population of this research is all young people of Tehran city. 400 of them were selected as the sample size using Cochran formula.

The tendency to ethical anomalies is different in terms of socioeconomic status, gender, marital status, and level of education. Also, the results of multivariate regression showed that independent variables of research (membership in virtual social networks, amount of activity in virtual social networks, type of use of virtual social networks) explained 0.32 of the tendency to ethical anomalies of youth in Tehran.

The results showed that the tendency to ethical anomalies among the youths of Tehran city is increasingly moderate. Young people who subscribe to virtual social networks and who do not make proper use of this space are more prone to ethical anomalies.