Investigating the impact of online social media on users and their strong and weak points (Case Study: Students of Payame Noor University in Tehran)

The use of social networks has become widespread in recent years, and students are among those who have eagerly embraced them. That’s why, it is necessary to analyze how students live through the use of such networks.  The present study is aimed at investigating the strength and weakness of social networks and their impact and influence on students. Addiction, anxiety, privacy, friendship, trust, cooperation and motivation are among the weak and strong characteristics of the social media. The research method applied for this study is survey and its data have been gathered using researcher-made questionnaires. The validity of the instrument was confirmed subjectively by face validity and its reliability was confirmed by using Cronbach's alpha Coefficient. The sample size of 80 people, were selected from Media Management students who were studying at the second semester of 2018-2019 academic year at Payame Noor University in Tehran- West.  The findings of the study show that students value the positive aspects of social networks much more than the negative aspects of social networks. Using factor analysis, the components of the questionnaires were classified into seven factors based on cluster analysis, which was named and confirmed by the strong and weak points of social networks. Recognizing the strengths and weaknesses of social networks, significantly improves academic performance of students and leads to more utilization of the strong points and find remedy and resolving the weaknesses existed within these networks