The effectiveness of cognitive - behavioral therapy and metacognition based learning combination on reducing social network dependency

Dependency on virtual social networks is associated with negative psychological and non-psychological consequences but can the combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy and meta-cognitive training have an effective role in reducing this dependency?

The main purpose of the present study was to investigate the effectiveness of a combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy and meta-cognitive training in reducing virtual social networks dependency.

The research design is quasi-experimental with pretest-posttest and control group. Data gathering tool is Virtual Social Networking Dependency Questionnaire (Sadeghzadeh et al., 2018). Among the students with high scores on social networks dependency which have been chosen by convenience sampling, 30 volunteers were randomly divided into experimental and control groups. The experimental group received twelve training sessions based on a researcher-made protocol (2018).

The results of statistical analysis showed that the experimental group had lower mean scores on the social network dependency scale in compare with the control group. This result was significant at alpha level of 0/05.

it can be said that our protocol was recognized effective and it can be helpful for counselors, parents and educational policymakers to reduce student's virtual social networks dependency.