A Sociological Study of the Relationship between Addiction to Virtual Social Networks and Emotional Divorce in Tehran Families

The main purpose of the present article is to sociologically study the relationship between virtual network addiction and emotional divorce among couples in Tehran, Iran and also to find the theoretical-analytical pattern of the variables involved in this field. The theoretical framework of this study is synthetic and based on Parsons' theory of structural functionalism. This quantitative research work was conducted using the survey research method, and the required data were collected using a questionnaire. The statistical population of the study consisted of all the married residents in Tehran, and the study sample included 403 married people who had access to cyberspace. To select this sample, the two-stage cluster sampling method was used. The research findings indicate that there is a pattern of inverse statistical relationship between the independent variable ‘Internet addiction’ and the dependent variable ‘emotional divorce’ with an impact factor of 16.0. However, Internet addiction affects the dependent variable through the variables intimacy, alienation, religiosity, mental health and adherence to traditions and values​, among which marital intimacy has the highest impact factor.