The Journal of Medical Education and Development

Introduction: Social networks are the most important means of communication in the societies as well as in the world, so the use of virtual social networks among students is important. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the use of virtual social networks among students in Gonabad University of Medical Sciences.

Methods: In this descriptive study, 277 students were randomly selected from  Gonabad University of  Medical Sciences. They completed a questionnaire which its validity and reliability were obtained in earlier studies. Then the data were analyzed using SPSS software version 20.

Results: The findings showed that 87 percent of the students were aware of virtual social networks, and 52 percent were members of these social networks. Students spend about an hour and eleven minutes (SD=2.20771) on the virtual networks. There was no significant difference between academic achievement of students in the groups.

Conclusion: The results showed that more than half of the students were members of social networks. Students are not familiar with all of the effects of these social networks since they are recently emerged, so performing more research on other aspects of their impact on the life and health of students are necessary.