Context The current study aimed at comparing students’ academic engagement (AE) based on their educational use of social networks (EUSN) in learning English at the Iran language Institute (ILI), Tabriz branch. Methods The survey study evaluated the status of EUSN and AE on 204 English language learners (ELLs). The population of the study consisted of all ELLs (n = 1874) studying at the Tabriz branch of ILI in the spring of 2017. The instruments used in the current study to measure variables were the Reeve and Tseng AE questionnaire (α = 0.968) and a researcher-made questionnaire (α = 0.966) for EUSN. Results The results of ANOVA and least significant difference (LSD) showed that students’ AE varied according to their EUSN. AE of the ELLs using social network four to six hours a week (103.82 ± 8.19 hours) was higher than (93.74 ± 12.73 hours) those of the ones that spent two to four hours on social network and theirs was higher than (86.52 ± 16.7 hours) those of the ones that spent less than two hours on social network (P < 0.01). This difference was significant in all components of AE. Conclusions The use of social networking in education and learning can provide an appropriate basis for interaction between teachers and students and use of these networks in the teaching process is recommended.