Comparison of Social Trust among Internet-dependent Students With Independent Students

The study of the various effects and consequences of Internet dependence has been the core of many recent studies and it seems that Internet dependence also affects the variable of trust. Therefore, the present study was designed and conducted to investigate the comparison of social trust among Internet-dependent students with non-Internet-dependent students. The present study is applied in terms of purpose and comparative in terms of method and has been done with survey technique and questionnaire measurement tool. For this purpose, a sample of 400 students out of a total of 282515 students were selected during the school year 2019. Participants were surveyed through two scales, one relating to “social trust” that comprised the five components of honesty, openness, willingness to cooperate, confidence and trust and the other assessing dependence to internet chatting by Young … that comprised 8 items.The results of independent t-test and Spearman rank correlation coefficient in the study showed that the overall status of social trust of the studied students was above average with an average of 3.38 and the studied students were 31.2% (or average of 2.44 out of 8) dependent on the Internet. According to the research findings, there is a significant difference in trust and honesty of social trust indicators between Internet-dependent and non-Internet-dependent students (p <0.05). Findings indicate that there is a significant difference between male and female students only in trusting the indicators of social trust (p <0.05), trust in male students was higher. According to the research findings, with increasing internet dependence, students' willingness to cooperate and honesty decreases. There is a negative and significant relationship between the degree of Internet dependence and the age and educational level of students. According to the research findings, the level of social trust among Internet-dependent students is different from independent students and social trust is weaker in the indicators of trust and honesty in Internet-dependent students. And attention, planning, and action are needed to control and reduce Internet dependence and its negative consequences on social trust.