The Prevalence of the Virtual Social Networks Use and their ‎‎Pathology in the Student Teachers of the Farhangian University

The purpose of this study was to investigate the prevalence of the virtual social networks use and their pathology in student teachers of Farhangian University of Mazandaran Province. The research method is descriptive. The statistical population of the study includes all student teachers of Farhangian University of Mazandaran province who were studying in this university in 1398. The number of people in the community is 2430 people, using Cochran's formula; the calculated sample number is 332 people. The sampling method is stratified, and a researcher-made questionnaire was used to collect information. All statistical calculations were performed by SPSS22 software. In order to summarize the variables related to the usefulness and harms of virtual social networks, SWOT and exploratory factor analysis were used by Varimax method, KMO coefficient and Bartlet statistics. The results showed that 73.5% of student teachers Farhangian University uses virtual networks for 2 to 8 hours a day also, four applications, WhatsApp, Telegram, Instagram, and Shamim, are the most used. Also, educational aplications and strengths and weaknesses and opportunities and threats of cyberspace were identified, and the results showed that social networks, despite having many strengths and opportunities in various fields, if not properly managed is possible.