Why do Students use Virtual Social Networks in Iran: a System Approach

Abstract

Rise of Social Network Sites, such as Facebook, significantly influences the behaviour of students around the world nowadays. Different studies have been done up till now to investigate different stimuli on using Facebook. In this study, as one of the first attempts to investigate dynamic influencing factors, systems approach is used to consider such factors’ effects and their feedback simultaneously. After finding major factors and estimating the behaviours, in order to verify effects of them, an online questionnaire was prepared to gather Iranian Facebook users’ attitudes toward these factors. After interpreting answers, we ran a dynamic simulation model and made some discussions about the effects of different factors on the time which users spend in Facebook. The results show that negative impact of filtering causes decrease on time users spend in Facebook. Under current situation, although filtering on internet has its effects on users in Iran, tendency toward using different facilities of Facebook is strong enough to overcome these negative effects.

Keywords

• social networks
• students
• Iran
• system dynamics