Presenting an Ethical Scale to Measure the Online Social Networks Addiction

The Online social networks addiction is a type of technologies addiction that it is defined as non-chemical and behavioral addiction. The addiction to online social networks can lead to distraction, depression, anxiety, lower academic performance and so on. In this study a scale was developed based on the previous literature and researches of authors and in consideration of negative effects of social networks addiction on ethics and behavior of user to measure the online social networks addiction in Iran.
The method of study is Descriptive-Survey. The statistical population of study was the college students in Urmia university of Technology and the convenience sample was 206 (121 male and 85 female) of them. The Online form of social networks addiction scale was sent to students. The reliability of the ethical scale was assessed by calculating the Cronbach’s alpha coefficient and the exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis were used to verify the validity of the ethical scale.
The result of Cronbach’s alpha coefficient showed that the ethical scale has a high reliability and the confirmatory factor analysis showed that the factor structure is good.
Therefore, the online social networks addiction ethical scale consists of 34 items and 7 dimensions can be used as an appropriate instrument to measure the online social networks addiction of Iranian college students