Social media platforms and their role in changing social values among Babylon University students

Abstract

the communication development that accompanied contemporary societies has overturned the usual stereotype in dealing with thorny issues, and raised the monotony of cultural exchange to a level we have never seen before. Marshall McLuhan was creative in inventing the concept of the global village, in which he predicted the character that human societies would move towards in the field of communication and its techno-media relationship. However, he was unable to determine or anticipate the speed and form of the enormous changes that accompanied those developments witnessed by media societies, if it is permissible to say that the spaces of interactive media and social communication today have become almost universal, covering most regions of the world and circulating the majority of events, making the individual capable of knowing the most minute details that occur in areas thousands of kilometers away from him, and enabling him to communicate with the internal or external audience or others in places that are difficult to reach. This study aims to know the role of social media platforms in changing the social values ​​of the students of the University of Babylon, and to identify the most important basic criteria that form social values ​​and break them down into important categories to know social values ​​​​objectively. To achieve the goal of the study, the student used the survey method, and a questionnaire consisting of (28) paragraphs was prepared, which was distributed to a sample of (400) male and female students at the University of Babylon for the academic year 2023-2024, where the results answered the main question of the study: (What is the role of social media platforms in changing the social values ​​​​of the students of the University of Babylon?), and the researcher relied on the study of the theory of social education regardless of the waste generated by the communication platforms now most students and through the most important results reached by the researcher, as they acquired many cognitive values, cultural awareness and respect for the rights of others, but many of the results we reached through this study will be presented at the end.