Self-Control and Cybercultural Transgressions: How Social Media Users Differ

Abstract

Cyber transgressions (nonnormative behaviors, attitudes and conditions) - both cultural and criminal - have raised social control concerns among different stakeholders. A group comparison research design was adopted to examine the effects of sociodemographic factors and social media use habits of Iranian social media users (n= 989) on their self-control, cybercultural transgressive behaviors, and transgressive content consumption. The study has contributed to the literature by recognizing the impacts of gender, age, relationship status, parental, educational, and occupational status, and household income level on the outcome variables. Altogether, it can be inferred from the results that individuals (especially women) who are older, married, have children, are middle-income, university educated, non-student, have more years of Internet use experience, and less daily internet use, and have a job (also retired individuals and housewives) are less likely than others to commit online transgressive behaviors, or consume transgressive content. The findings of this study can be employed to devise new policies and initiatives to socially control the cybercultural transgressions, without applying coercion.