Investigating the relationship between the media literacy level and critical thinking and social skills among students of the Payame Noor University of Birjand.

In the present age, when the influx of different information and messages has affected different aspects of people's lives, media literacy is a social need for young people. The purpose of this article is to investigate the relationship between media literacy and critical thinking and social skills among undergraduate students of the Payame Noor University of South Khorasan. This article is a quantitative field survey method and, in terms of purpose, it is considered as applied research. For data collection, three standard questionnaires for media literacy, Falsafi (1393), Retex (2005) and the social skills questionnaire Matson et al. (1983) were used. Sampling has been done in an accessible way and by publishing a link to answer the questionnaires in cyberspace. The results showed that media literacy has a significant relationship with critical thinking and social skills and its components can explain the above variables. There was also no difference between the male and female students in media literacy, critical thinking and social skills. Due to the difference in media literacy between the undergraduate and graduate students, it was suggested to hold media literacy training workshops to promote critical thinking and social skills to strengthen students' social skills and critical thinking.