A PROJECT REPORT ON

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES – “BOON” OR “CURSE”

SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE DEGREE OF

BACHELOR OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

AFFILIATED TO:

M.J.P ROHILKHAND UNIVERSITY, BAREILLY

DEPARTMENT OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES TEERTHANKAR

MAHAVEER INSTITUTE OF MANAGEMENT & TECHNOLOGY,
MORADABAD (U.P.)

PROJECT GUIDE: PROJECT INCHARGE:

Ms. Bosky Agarwal Dr. Mayank Sharma

SUBMITTED BY:

Kritika Rastogi
 ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

A work is never a work of an individual. I owe a sense of gratitude

to the
intelligence and co-operation of those people who had been so
easy to let me understand what I needed from time to time for
completion of this exclusive project.

I want to express my gratitude towards to my project guide Ms.

Bosky Agarwal who provide me time and inspiration needed to
detail out this project.

I would like to thank our Chairman- Mr. Suresh Jain, Vice

Chairaman- Mr. Manish Jain, Director- Mr. Hari Om Agarwal,
Executive director- Dr. A.K. Garg, Course coordinator- Dr.
Mayank Sharma, Librarian- Mr. Sanjeev Singh, Lab Incharge-
Mr. Manoj Gupta for giving us an opportunity to do this project.

Last but not the least, I would like to forward my gratitude to my

friends & other faculty members who always endured me and
stood by us and without whom I could not have envisaged the
completion of my project.

KRITIKA RASTOGI

BBA VIth SEMESTER

ROLL NO. 871270

 PREFACE

Any technological advancement presents social scientists with an

opportunity to gain insight into human behaviour and the innovation of
online social networking has presented those of us interested in
understanding the uses of social networking sites and their contribution in
development of youngster and also to review how these social networking
sites are developing in getting fame worldwide.

Social networking sites offer people new and varied ways to

communicate via the internet, whether through their PC or their mobile
phone. They allow people to easily and simply create their own online page
or profile and to construct and display an online network of contacts, often
called ‘friends’. Users of these sites can communicate via their profile both
with their ‘friends’ and with people outside their list of contacts.

The rapid growth of social networking sites in recent years indicates

that they are now a mainstream communications technology for many
people.
TABLE OF CONTENTS

Executive Summary
Social Networking – An Introduction
Social Networking Services
Types of Social Networking Services
Profile Based
Content Based Networking Services
White Label Social Networking Services
Mobile Social Neworking Services
Social Search
Social Networking Sites
A History of Social Networking Sites
Background
Objective
Engaging With Social Networking Sites
Attitude & Behaviour Towards Social Networking Sites
How people Use Social Networking Sites
Benefits & Opportunities
Privacy & Safety
Some Examples of Social Networking Sites
Six Degrees
Live Journal
Asian Avenue
Black Planet
My Space
Orkut
Hi5
Facebook
Twitter
Social Networking Sites Boon Or Curse
Advantages & Disadvantages
Research Methodology
Analysis & Findings
Conclusion
Limitations
Suggestions
Reference
WEBLIOGRAPHY
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Questionnaire
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The social networking sites are gaining a lot of popularity these days with
almost all of the educated youth using one or the other such site. These
have played a crucial role in bridging boundaries and crossing the seas and
enabling them to communicate on a common platform. It has become a
popular and a potential mean for them to stay friends with the existing ones
and to grow up their social circle at least in terms of acquaintances.

The question regarding the safety, privacy and the legal issues have been
cropping up all this time. Through this research we try to find out the impact
of these networking sites on the personal and professional lives of people
using them. It is a very subjective question to answer and is very opinion
based and the same is reflected in the research methodology adopted by
us.

The report is initiated with the definition of the objective followed with the
research methodology used along with the research design, sample size,
methods used for the purpose of conducting survey. It also incorporates the
sampling frame and the data collection procedure.
Subsequent to this is the Introduction to the networking sites along with a
brief description of the most popular sites. Then the issues of concern
which have come up along the way in all these years since these sites
gained popularity are discussed. The various issues and concerns of the
respondents are also incorporated there. The next part of the research has
the literature surveys which are the articles we took up from the published
reports. We then analyzed and interpreted the data at length. The last part
deals with the suggestions and recommendations that the group has come
up with after carefully analyzing and incorporating the opinion of all
concerned.
SOCIAL NETWORKING – AN INTRODUCTION

Social networking, we have all likely heard of it before, but not everyone
knows what it means? If you were asked to define what social networking
was, would you be able to give an accurate definition. Unfortunately, most
individuals cannot, even though it is likely that they participate in some form
of social networking ,especially online.

“Social networking is defined as the grouping of individuals together into to

specific groups, often like a small community or a neighborhood. Although
social networking is possible in person, especially in schools or in the
workplace, it is most popular online. This is because unlike most high
schools, colleges, or workplaces, the internet is filled with millions, if not
more, of individuals who are looking to meet other internet users and
developfriendships.”

When it comes to social networking online, websites are used. These

websites are known as social networking websites. Social networking
websites are, in a way, like an online community of internet users.
Depending on the social networking website in question, many of these
online community members share a common bond, whether that bond be
hobbies, religion, or politics. Once you are granted access to a social
networking website you can begin to socialize. This socialization may
include reading the profiles or profile pages of other members or even
contacting them.

The friends that you can make are just one of the many benefits to social
networking online. Another one of those benefits includes diversity. Unlike
in most schools or workplaces, the internet gives individuals, from all
around the world, access to social networking sties. This means that
although you are in the United States, you could develop an online
friendship with someone in Japan. Not only will you make a new friend, you
but may also learn a thing or two about a new culture.

As previously mentioned, social networking often involves grouping specific

individuals or organizations together. While there are a number of social
networking websites that focus on particular internets, there are others that
do not. These websites are often deemed traditional social networking
websites. These types of websites typically have an open membership.
This means that anyone can become a member, no matter what their
hobbies, beliefs, or views are. However, once you are inside this online
community, you can begin to create your own network of friends; thus
eliminating others that do not meet your criteria. If networking on the
internet sounds like something you would be interested in, you are
encouraged to learn more about it, such as the dangers of social
networking. These dangers often involve online predators or individuals
who claim to be someone that they are not. Although danger does exist
with networking online, it also exists with networking out in the real world.
As when you are meeting friends at a bar, school, or work, you are advised
to proceed with caution online. By being aware of your surroundings and
who you are talking to, you should be able safely enjoying social
networking online. Once you have learned everything that you feel you
need to learn, about social networking online, you can begin to search for
networking communities to join. This can easily be done by performing a
standard internet search. Your search will likely return a number of results,
including MySpace, FriendWise, FriendFinder, Yahoo! 360, Facebook,
Orkut, and Classmates.
SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICES

A changing landscape
“… technology has not only mediated
communication in countless ways, but ... the
very ways we communicate – and even the
ways we talk and think about communication –
are changing as a result.”

Social networking services are changing the ways in

which people use and engage with the Internet and with
each other. Young people, particularly, are quick to use
the new technology in ways that increasingly blur the
boundaries between online and offline activities.
Social networking services are also developing rapidly
as technology changes with new mobile dimensions
and features. Children and young people within the
UK, who have grown up taking the Internet and mobile
technologies for granted, make up a significant segment
of the “beta generation” – the first to exploit the positive
opportunities and benefits of new and emerging services,
but also the first to have to negotiate appropriate
behaviours within the new communities, and to have to
identify and manage risk.
While the number of visitors to social networking sites is
increasing, so too are the numbers of new services being
launched, along with the number of longstanding (within
the relatively brief lifespan of the Internet) websites that
are adding, developing or refining social networking
service features or tools.

The ways in which we connect to social networking

services are expanding too. Games-based and mobile phone-
based social networking services that interact
with existing web-based platforms or new mobile focused
communities are rapidly developing areas.

Definitions

“Social networking services” refers here to a wide-range

of rapidly developing services tools and practices.
Social networking services can be broadly defined as
Internet- or mobile-device-based social spaces designed
to facilitate communication, collaboration and content
sharing across networks of contacts.

Social networking services allow users to manage, build

and represent their social networks online. Services
usually (but not always) include other individuals; they
might also include the profiles of events, companies,
even political parties. They may let you add anyone in
the network as your friend or contact, or they might ask
both parties to agree all connections.

Social networking services typically support the public

display of networks, although they may offer privacy
restrictions or facilitate closed communities. Permissions
are a very important feature of most social networking
services. They allow members and groups to control
who can access their profiles, information, connections
and spaces, as well as determining degrees of access.
The level of granularity and control varies from service to
service, but typically settings allow you to:
* keep your information private (i.e. be seen by only
those to whom you give permission) or restrict the
visibility of your information to:

›› signed-in service members only

›› people on your contacts list
›› particular groups of service users
* make your information public so that even people who
are not members or are not signed in as members of
the service can see it.

Through these combinations of privacy settings, users

can manage a range of different relationships online, as
well as manage their online presence – how they appear
to friends, acquaintances or the general public.
Managing relationships online and managing your
online presence are key to having fun with and using
social networks safely. However, the speed of the
development of social networking services may mean
that young people are more likely to have developed
personal strategies or learnt from peers than from formal
instruction and support from adults.
Social networking sites vary in the types of tools and
functionality they provide (boyd & Ellison define social
networking sites as having three common elements: a
member profile (in their definition this is always a web
page), the ability to add other members to a contact list,
and supported interaction between members of contact
lists (interaction varies greatly, and there will typically be
some degree of interaction facilitated between people
who are not on each other’s contacts lists).
Social networking sites are often perceived by their users
as closed environments, where members talk to other members. This
impression of social networking services
as providing a private space is likely to account for
behaviour, language and postings that do not translate
well outside their intended closed context. While it i’s
important that children and young people understand
the public nature of much of their activity within social
networking services (and can use permissions and
privacy controls to manage personal information and
communications), we also need to ensure that online
activity is understood holistically – i.e. as the sum of
activity of all the online sites and networks that an
individual belongs to.

TYPES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SERVICE

This section attempts to order the current range of social

networking services available, and outlines two main
formats: sites that are primarily organised around users’
profiles, and those that are organised around collections
of content9. However, it is important to remember that
services differ and may be characterised by more than
one category.

Users may also tailor the intended use of platforms

to suit their own interests. For instance, sites that are
primarily profile focused may be used by individuals
to showcase media collections or be used as a work
space for particular topics or events. Educators setting
up private groups to collaborate and use tools are a
great example of how social networking services can be
tailored for users’ own ends.

Profile-based social networking services

Profile-based services are primarily organised around

members’ profile pages – pages that mainly consist
of information about an individual member, including
the person’s picture and details of interests, likes and
dislikes. Bebo, Facebook and MySpace are all good
examples of profile-based services. Users develop their spaces in various
ways, and can often contribute to each other’s spaces, typically leaving
text, embedded content or links to external content
through message walls, comment or evaluation tools.
Users often include third-party content (in the form
of widgets) to enhance their profiles or as a way of
including information from other web services and social
networking services.

Content-based social networking services

In these services, the user’s profile remains an important

way of organising connections, but plays a secondary
role to the posting of content. Photo-sharing site
Flickr is an example of this type of service, one in which
groups and comments are based around pictures. Many
people have empty Flickr accounts and signed up to
the service to view their friends’ or family’s permission
protected pictures.
Other examples of content-based communities include
YouTube.com for video sharing and last.fm, in which
the content is arranged by software that monitors
and represents the music that users listen to. In last.
fm, content is generated by the user’s activity. The act
of listening to audio files creates and updates profile
information (“recently listened to”). This in turn generates
data about an individual user’s “neighbours” – people
who have recently listened to the same kind of music.

White-label social networking services

Most social networking services offer some groupbuilding

functionality, which allows users to form minicommunities
within sites. Platforms such as PeopleAggregator and Ning, which
launched in 2004, offer members a different model. These sites offer
members the opportunity to create and join communities. MySpaces”10 –
small-scale social networking sites that support specific interests, events or
activities. Setting up and running a social networking service also means
increased responsibility and liability of the creator or host for on-site activity.
Mobile social networking services

Many social networking sites, for example MySpace and

Twitter, offer mobile phone versions of their services,
allowing members to interact with their friends via their
phones. Increasingly, too, there are mobile-led and
mobile-only communities, which include profiles and
media-sharing just as with web-based social networking
services. MYUBO, for example, allows users to share
and view video over mobile networks1112.
Micro-blogging/presence updates
Micro-blogging services such as Twitter and Jaiku allow
you to publish short (140 characters, including spaces)
messages publicly or within contact groups. These
services are designed to work as mobile services, but are
popularly used on the web as well.
Many services offer status updates – short messages
that can be updated to let people know what mood you
are in or what you are doing. These can be checked
within the site, read as text messages on phones, or
exported to be read or displayed elsewhere13. They
engage users in constantly updated conversation and
contact with their online networks.
Social Search
Social search engines are an important web
development which utilise the popularity of social
networking services. There are various kinds of social
search engine, but sites like Wink and Spokeo generate
results by searching across the public profiles of multiple
social networking sites, allowing the creation of webbased
dossiers on individuals. This type of people
search cuts across the traditional boundaries of social
networking site membership, although any data retrieved should already be
in the public domain.

What do people do on social

networking services?

People use social networking services for countless

activities. Among the most common uses, however, are:

Connecting with existing networks, making and developing

friendships/contacts

Young people tend to use social networking services

to communicate and socialise with their contacts and
consolidate their existing friendship networks. However,
in the same way that some children and young people
collect trading cards or kinds of toy, some young people
use social networks to collect contacts to display
their popularity.

Represent themselves online and create and

develop an online presence

Social networking services provide purpose-built

spaces for members to create and present an online
representation of themselves, either within friendship or
wider networks

Viewing content and/or finding information

As well as keeping up to date with what other people are

doing, you can use social networking servicesthem to
generate recommendations based on likes and activities.
Social networking services are awash with content –
pictures, music, video, as well as event, organisation and
topic information.

Creating and customising profiles

There are many different kinds of profiles, although they

typically consist of a web page supported by a range
of tools. Profile pages are not just lists of information –
they allow members to develop and present an image
of themselves to the world, and to establish and project
their online identities. Displays of preferences (favourite
music, books and films, for example) allow members to
share information about themselves.
Most social networking sites also allow members to
customise the look and feel of their pages to a greater
or lesser extent, through page templates or content,
including video, widgets, music and images.

Authoring and uploading your own content

Content might be in the form of messages or blog posts

– it might also be photos, video or music.

Adding and sharing third-party content

Third-party content might be in the form of links or

embedded content hosted somewhere else – for
example, a video hosted at YouTube or another videohosting
service, but playable on a member’s profile page.
Content may be added in widget form – widgets can be
simple badges (pictures with links back to other sites)
or dynamic content, for example, a slide show or the
last songs catalogued by a last.fm account. This type
of dynamic content makes it easy to move information,
content and links from one social networking service
to another.
Quizzes and polls are also very popular. Some services
allow you to create quizzes or compare yourself with
other people on your contacts list who have also answered questions or
added a particular application

Posting messages – public and private

Many services support public and private messaging

through message boards or in-service email.
MySpace and Facebook offer members an instant
messaging system.

Collaborating with other people

By using service tools to create groups, users can, for

example, collectively create profiles, hold discussions,
and store, share and comment on objects. In-service messaging can be a
rich source of informal collaboration.

SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES (SNS)

Introduction

Since their introduction, social network sites (SNSs) such as MySpace,

Facebook, Cyworld, and Bebo have attracted millions of users, many of
whom have integrated these sites into their daily practices. As of this
writing, there are hundreds of SNSs, with various technological
affordances, supporting a wide range of interests and practices. While their
key technological features are fairly consistent, the cultures that emerge
around SNSs are varied. Most sites support the maintenance of pre-
existing social networks, but others help strangers connect based on
shared interests, political views, or activities. Some sites cater to diverse
audiences, while others attract people based on common language or
shared racial, sexual, religious, or nationality-based identities. Sites also
vary in the extent to which they incorporate new information and
communication tools, such as mobile connectivity, blogging, and
photo/video-sharing.

Scholars from disparate fields have examined SNSs in order to understand

the practices, implications, culture, and meaning of the sites, as well as
users' engagement with them. This special theme section of the Journal of
Computer-Mediated Communication brings together a unique collection of
articles that analyze a wide spectrum of social network sites using various
methodological techniques, theoretical traditions, and analytic approaches.
By collecting these articles in this issue, our goal is to showcase some of
the interdisciplinary scholarship around these sites.

The purpose of this introduction is to provide a conceptual, historical, and

scholarly context for the articles in this collection. We begin by defining
what constitutes a social network site and then present one perspective on
the historical development of SNSs, drawing from personal interviews and
public accounts of sites and their changes over time. Following this, we
review recent scholarship on SNSs and attempt to contextualize and
highlight key works. We conclude with a description of the articles included
in this special section and suggestions for future research.
Social Network Sites: A Definition

We define social network sites as web-based services that allow individuals

to (1) construct a public or semi-public profile within a bounded system, (2)
articulate a list of other users with whom they share a connection, and (3)
view and traverse their list of connections and those made by others within
the system. The nature and nomenclature of these connections may vary
from site to site.

While we use the term "social network site" to describe this phenomenon,
the term "social networking sites" also appears in public discourse, and the
two terms are often used interchangeably. We chose not to employ the
term "networking" for two reasons: emphasis and scope. "Networking"
emphasizes relationship initiation, often between strangers. While
networking is possible on these sites, it is not the primary practice on many
of them, nor is it what differentiates them from other forms of computer-
mediated communication (CMC).

What makes social network sites unique is not that they allow individuals to
meet strangers, but rather that they enable users to articulate and make
visible their social networks. This can result in connections between
individuals that would not otherwise be made, but that is often not the goal,
and these meetings are frequently between "latent ties",who share some
offline connection. On many of the large SNSs, participants are not
necessarily "networking" or looking to meet new people; instead, they are
primarily communicating with people who are already a part of their
extended social network. To emphasize this articulated social network as a
critical organizing feature of these sites, we label them "Social Network
Sites."

While SNSs have implemented a wide variety of technical features, their

backbone consists of visible profiles that display an articulated list of
Friends1 who are also users of the system. Profiles are unique pages where
one can "type oneself into being." After joining an SNS, an individual is
asked to fill out forms containing a series of questions. The profile is
generated using the answers to these questions, which typically include
descriptors such as age, location, interests, and an "about me" section.
Most sites also encourage users to upload a profile photo. Some sites allow
users to enhance their profiles by adding multimedia content or modifying
their profile's look and feel. Others, such as Facebook, allow users to add
modules ("Applications") that enhance their profile.

The visibility of a profile varies by site and according to user discretion. By

default, profiles on Friendster and Tribe.net are crawled by search engines,
making them visible to anyone, regardless of whether or not the viewer has
an account. Alternatively, LinkedIn controls what a viewer may see based
on whether she or he has a paid account. Sites like MySpace allow users to
choose whether they want their profile to be public or "Friends only."
Facebook takes a different approach—by default, users who are part of the
same "network" can view each other's profiles, unless a profile owner has
decided to deny permission to those in their network. Structural variations
around visibility and access are one of the primary ways that SNSs
differentiate themselves from each other.
After joining a social network site, users are prompted to identify others in
the system with whom they have a relationship. The label for these
relationships differs depending on the site—popular terms include
"Friends," "Contacts," and "Fans." Most SNSs require bi-directional
confirmation for Friendship, but some do not. These one-directional ties are
sometimes labeled as "Fans" or "Followers," but many sites call these
Friends as well. The term "Friends" can be misleading, because the
connection does not necessarily mean friendship in the everyday
vernacular sense, and the reasons people connect are varied.

The public display of connections is a crucial component of SNSs. The

Friends list contains links to each Friend's profile, enabling viewers to
traverse the network graph by clicking through the Friends lists. On most
sites, the list of Friends is visible to anyone who is permitted to view the
profile, although there are exceptions. For instance, some MySpace users
have hacked their profiles to hide the Friends display, and LinkedIn allows
users to opt out of displaying their network.

Most SNSs also provide a mechanism for users to leave messages on their
Friends' profiles. This feature typically involves leaving "comments,"
although sites employ various labels for this feature. In addition, SNSs
often have a private messaging feature similar to webmail. While both
private messages and comments are popular on most of the major SNSs,
they are not universally available.

Not all social network sites began as such. QQ started as a Chinese instant
messaging service, LunarStorm as a community site, Cyworld as a Korean
discussion forum tool, and Skyrock (formerly Skyblog) was a French
blogging service before adding SNS features. Classmates.com, a directory
of school affiliates launched in 1995, began supporting articulated lists of
Friends after SNSs became popular. AsianAvenue, MiGente, and
BlackPlanet were early popular ethnic community sites with limited Friends
functionality before re-launching in 2005-2006 with SNS features and
structure.

Beyond profiles, Friends, comments, and private messaging, SNSs vary

greatly in their features and user base. Some have photo-sharing or video-
sharing capabilities; others have built-in blogging and instant messaging
technology. There are mobile-specific SNSs (e.g., Dodgeball), but some
web-based SNSs also support limited mobile interactions (e.g., Facebook,
MySpace, and Cyworld). Many SNSs target people from specific
geographical regions or linguistic groups, although this does not always
determine the site's constituency. Orkut, for example, was launched in the
United States with an English-only interface, but Portuguese-speaking
Brazilians quickly became the dominant user group. Some sites are
designed with specific ethnic, religious, sexual orientation, political, or other
identity-driven categories in mind. There are even SNSs for dogs (Dogster)
and cats (Catster), although their owners must manage their profiles.

While SNSs are often designed to be widely accessible, many attract

homogeneous populations initially, so it is not uncommon to find groups
using sites to segregate themselves by nationality, age, educational level,
or other factors that typically segment society), even if that was not the
intention of the designers.
A HISTORY OF SOCIAL NETWORK SITES

The Early Years

According to the definition above, the first recognizable social network site
launched in 1997. SixDegrees.com allowed users to create profiles, list
their Friends and, beginning in 1998, surf the Friends lists. Each of these
features existed in some form before SixDegrees, of course. Profiles
existed on most major dating sites and many community sites. AIM and
ICQ buddy lists supported lists of Friends, although those Friends were not
visible to others. Classmates.com allowed people to affiliate with their high
school or college and surf the network for others who were also affiliated,
but users could not create profiles or list Friends until years later.
SixDegrees was the first to combine these features.

SixDegrees promoted itself as a tool to help people connect with and send
messages to others. While SixDegrees attracted millions of users, it failed
to become a sustainable business and, in 2000, the service closed. Looking
back, its founder believes that SixDegrees was simply ahead of its time (A.
Weinreich, personal communication, July 11, 2007). While people were
already flocking to the Internet, most did not have extended networks of
friends who were online. Early adopters complained that there was little to
do after accepting Friend requests, and most users were not interested in
meeting strangers.

From 1997 to 2001, a number of community tools began supporting various

combinations of profiles and publicly articulated Friends. AsianAvenue,
BlackPlanet, and MiGente allowed users to create personal, professional,
and dating profiles—users could identify Friends on their personal profiles
without seeking approval for those connections. Likewise, shortly after its
launch in 1999, LiveJournal listed one-directional connections on user
pages. LiveJournal's creator suspects that he fashioned these Friends after
instant messaging buddy lists —on LiveJournal, people mark others as
Friends to follow their journals and manage privacy settings. The Korean
virtual worlds site Cyworld was started in 1999 and added SNS features in
2001, independent of these other sites. Likewise, when the Swedish web
community LunarStorm refashioned itself as an SNS in 2000, it contained
Friends lists, guestbooks, and diary pages.

The next wave of SNSs began when Ryze.com was launched in 2001 to
help people leverage their business networks. Ryze's founder reports that
he first introduced the site to his friends—primarily members of the San
Francisco business and technology community, including the entrepreneurs
and investors behind many future SNSs. In particular, the people behind
Ryze, Tribe.net, LinkedIn, and Friendster were tightly entwined personally
and professionally. They believed that they could support each other
without competing. In the end, Ryze never acquired mass popularity,
Tribe.net grew to attract a passionate niche user base, LinkedIn became a
powerful business service, and Friendster became the most significant, if
only as "one of the biggest disappointments in Internet history."
Figure 1. Timeline of the launch dates of many major SNSs and dates
when community sites re-launched with SNS features
Like any brief history of a major phenomenon, ours is necessarily
incomplete. In the following section we discuss Friendster, MySpace, and
Facebook, three key SNSs that shaped the business, cultural, and research
landscape.

BACKGROUND

The rapid growth of social networking that has been observed over the last
two to three years is indicative of its entry into mainstream culture and its
integration into the daily lives of many people. In parallel with this, there has
also been considerable media coverage of the growth of social networking,
its potential positive outcomes and concerns about the way that
some people are engaging with it. Social networking sites offer people new
and varied ways to communicate via the internet, whether through their PC
or their mobile phone. They allow people to easily and simply create their
own online page or profile and to construct and display an online network of
contacts, often called ‘friends’. Users of these sites can communicate via
their profile both with their ‘friends’ and with people outside their list of
contacts. This can be on a one-to-one
basis (much like an email), or in a more public way such as a comment
posted for all to see. For the purpose of this research report we have
purposely focused on the social and communications aspects of social
networking sites. We have deliberately not included either online networks
dedicated to business networking, or user-generated content (UGC) sites
(as the latter’s primary focus is on content creation and sharing rather than
the development of online social networks). Like other communications
tools, social networking sites have certain rules, conventions and practices
which users have to navigate to make themselves understood and avoid
difficulties. These range from the etiquette of commenting on other people's
profiles to understanding who one does and doesn’t add as a ‘friend’.
Social networking sites also have some potential pitfalls to negotiate, such
as the unintended consequences of publicly posting sensitive personal
information, confusion over privacy settings, and contact with people one
doesn’t know. Several of the issues around the use of social networking
sites are important from a media
literacy standpoint. Section 11 of the Communications Act 2003 requires
Ofcom to promote media literacy. We define media literacy as ‘the ability to
access, understand and create communications in a variety of contexts’. In
practice, this means that we are seeking to bring about and encourage
better public understanding and awareness of the digital media in use
today. One element of Ofcom’s Media Literacy Strategy is to provide a
robust evidence base to
help define future priorities for Ofcom. Research helps us identify the
issues, direct our activity and inform progress towards achieving our goals.
The purpose of this report is therefore to provide evidence-based insights
into the social networking phenomenon which can be used to inform current
understanding of usage and behaviour in the UK, and to help identify some
of the current and potential future issues around people’s use of social
networking sites.

OBJECTIVE
In this age of globalization, the world has become too small a place thanks
to the electronic media and portals. Communication has become effective
as never before thanks to the advent of internet. The social networking
sites have also played a crucial role in bridging boundaries and crossing
the seas and bringing all people at a common platform where they can
meet like minded people or find old friends and communicate with them. It
has become a potential mean to relation building and staying in touch with
all known.

Hence the objective that we wanted to achieve through our research is to:

Find out the influence of social networking sites on the personal and
professional life of the people- how it affects their relations, what are its
uses for each individuals and how have they been influenced by these
sites.

This report is the first dedicated look at social networking that has
undertaken. It seeks to understand how people are using social networking
sites as well as their attitudes to this form of communication.

The objectives of this report are as follows:

• to set social networking sites in the wider media literacy, online and
communications
context;
• to profile the use of sites;
• to understand people’s use of sites; and
• to investigate concerns about privacy and safety.

ENGAGING WITH SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Social networking sites offer people new and varied ways to communicate
via the internet, whether through their PC or their mobile phone. Examples
include MySpace, Facebook and Bebo. They allow people to easily and
simply create their own online page or profile and to construct and display
an online network of contacts, often called ‘friends’. Users of these sites
can communicate via their profile both with their ‘friends’ and with people
outside their list of contacts. The rapid growth of social networking sites in
recent years indicates that they are now a mainstream communications
technology for many people.

Social networking sites are most popular with teenagers and young
adults

Theresearch shows that just over one fifth (22%) of adult internet users
aged 16+ and almost half (49%) of children aged 8-17 who use the internet
have set up their own profile on a social networking site.4 For adults, the
likelihood of setting up a profile is highest among 16-24 year olds (54%)
and decreases with age.

Some under-13s are by-passing the age restrictions on social

networking sites

Despite the fact that the minimum age for most major social networking
sites is usually 13 (14 on MySpace), 27% of 8-11 year olds who are aware
of social networking sites say that they have a profile on a site. While some
of these younger users are on sites intended for younger children, the
presence of underage users on social networking sites intended for those
aged 13 or over was also confirmed by qualitative research conducted by
me.

The average adult social networker has profiles on 1.6 sites, and most
users check their profile at least every other day

Adult social networkers use a variety of sites, with the main ones being
Bebo, Facebook and MySpace. It is common for adults to have a profile on
more than one site - on average each adult with a social networking page
or profile has profiles on 1.6 sites, and 39% of adults have profiles on two
or more sites. Half of all current adult social networkers say that they
access their profiles at least every other day. The site people choose to use
varies depending on the user. Children are more likely to use Bebo (63% of
those who have a social networking site profile), and the most popular site
for adults is Facebook (62% of those who have a social networking profile).
There is also a difference between socio-economic groups: ABC1s with a
social networking profile were more likely to use Facebook than C2DEs,
who were more likely to have a profile on MySpace. Unless otherwise
stated, this report uses the term ‘children’ to include all young people aged
8-17.16 and 17 year olds are classed as adults for the purposes of the
media literacy audit, but children for the purposes of the Children, young
people and online content research.

Two-thirds of parents claim to set rules on their child’s use of social

networking sites, although only 53% of children said that their parents
setsuch rules

For many children, the rules and restrictions that their parents set on social
networking siteusage are an important influencing factor in the child’s use
of social networking sites. Twothirds of parents whose children have a
social networking page say they set rules on their child’s use of these sites.
Most commonly these concerned meeting new people online and giving out
personal details. However, significantly fewer children (53% of those with
social networking profiles) say that their parents set rules on their use of
these sites.

ATTITUDES AND BEHAVIOURS TOWARDS SOCIAL

NETWORKING SITES

Social networkers fall into distinct groups

Social networkers differ in their attitudes to social networking sites and in

their behavior while using them.The qualitative research indicates that site
users tend to fall into five distinct groups based on their behaviours and
attitudes. These are as follows:
• Alpha Socialisers – (a minority) people who used sites in intense short
bursts to flirt, meet new people, and be entertained.

• Attention Seekers – (some) people who craved attention and comments

from others, often by posting photos and customising their profiles.

• Followers – (many) people who joined sites to keep up with what their
peers were doing.

• Faithfuls – (many) people who typically used social networking sites to

rekindle old friendships, often from school or university.

• Functionals – (a minority) people who tended to be single-minded in

using sites for a particular purpose.

Non-users of social networking sites also fall into distinct groups

Non-users also appear to fall into distinct groups; these groups are based
on their reasons
for not using social networking sites:
• Concerned about safety – people concerned about safety online, in
particular making
personal details available online.
• Technically inexperienced – people who lack confidence in using the
internet and
computers.
• Intellectual rejecters – people who have no interest in social networking
sites and see them as a waste of time.

HOW PEOPLE USE SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

Users create well-developed profiles as the basis of their

online presence

The qualitative research confirmed the importance of a well-developed

profile to people’s use of these sites. Profiles often contain very detailed
information about the user, even though it is not compulsory to provide this.
Users also enjoy customising their profiles, posting photos, watching video
content, playing online games, and in some circumstances, experimenting
with aspects of their personalities. Building a profile in this way enables
users to efficiently develop a wide online social network by making the most
of the communications opportunities that social networking offers. Users
derive significant enjoyment from the process of building a social network,
collecting a list of their friends and using this list of friends to browse others’
profiles.
Users share personal information with a wide range of
‘friends’

Although contact lists on sites talk about ’friends’, social networking sites
stretch the
traditional meaning of ‘friends’ to mean anyone with whom a user has an
online connection.Therefore the term can include people who the user has
never actually met or spoken to. Unlike offline (or ‘real world’) friendship,
online friendships and connections are also displayed in a public and visible
way via friend lists. The public display of friend lists means that users often
share their personal details online with people they may not know at all
well. These details include religion, political views, sexuality and date of
birth that in the offline world a person might only share only with close
friends.

While communication with known contacts was the most

popular social networking activity, 17 % of adults used their
profile to communicate with people they do not know. This
increases among younger adults

Both quantitative and qualitative research showed that communication was

the most popular activity on social networking sites. Users communicated
mainly with people with whom they had at least some form of pre-existing
relationship. Sixty-nine per cent of adults who have a social networking
page or profile used social networking sites to talk to friends or family who
they saw regularly anyway, compared to 17% of adults who used sites to
talk to those they didn’t already know. In particular users of all ages
appreciated social networking sites as a means to manage their existing
relationships, and particularly for getting back in contact with old friends.
Among those who reported talking to people they didn’t know, there were
significant variations in age, but those who talked to people they didn’t
know were significantly more likely to be aged 16-24 (22% of those with a
social networking page or profile) than 25-34 (7% of those with a profile). In
our qualitative sample, several people reported using sites in
this way to look for romantic interests.

Only a few users highlighted negative aspects to social

networking

The majority of comments in our qualitative sample were positive about

social networking. A few users did mention negative aspects to social
networking, and these included annoyance at others using sites for self-
promotion, parties organised online getting out of hand, and online bullying.
 BENEFITS AND OPPORTUNITIES

Benefits for learners

Young people as social participants and

active citizens

Social networking services can provide an accessible

and powerful toolkit for highlighting and acting on issues
and causes that affect and interest young people. Social
networking services can be used for organising activities,
events, or groups to showcase issues and opinions and
make a wider audience aware of them.

Young people developing a voice and building trust

Social networking services could be used to hone

debating and discussion skills in a local, national or
international context. This helps users develop public
ways of presenting themselves. Personal skills are very
important in this context: to make, develop and keep
friendships, and to be regarded as a trusted connection
within a network. Social networking services can provide young people
with opportunities to learn how to function successfully
in a community, navigating a public social space and
developing social norms and skills as participants in
peer groups.

Young people as content creators, managers

and distributors

Social networking services rely on active participation:

users take part in activities and discussions on a site,
and upload, modify or create content. This supports
creativity and can support discussion about ownership of
content and data management.
Young people who use social networking services to
showcase content – music, film, photography or writing –
need to know what permissions they are giving the host
service, so that they can make informed decisions about
how and what they place on the site.
Users might also want to explore additional licensing
options that may be available to them within services –
for example Creative Commons licensing – to allow them
to share their work with other people in a range of ways.

Young people as collaborators and team players

Social networking services are designed to support users

working, thinking and acting together. They also require
listening and compromising skills. Young people may
need to ask others for help and advice in using services,
or understand how platforms work by observing others,
particularly in complex gaming or virtual environments.
Once users have developed confidence in a new
environment, they will also have gained the experience to
help others.

Young people as explorers and learners

Social networks encourage discovery. If someone is

interested in certain books, bands, recipes or ideas, it’s
likely that their interest will be catered for by a social
networking service or group within a service. If users
are looking for something more specific or unusual then
they could create their own groups or social networking
sites. Social networking services can help young
people develop their interests and find other people
who share the same interests. They can help introduce
young people to new things and ideas, and deepen
appreciation of existing interests. They can also help
broaden users’ horizons by helping them discover how
other people live and think in all parts of the world.
Young people becoming independent and
building resilience
Online spaces are social spaces, and social networking
services offer similar opportunities to those of offline
social spaces: places for young people to be with
friends or to explore alone, building independence
and developing the skills they need to recognise and
manage risk, to learn to judge and evaluate situations,
and to deal effectively with a world that can sometimes
be dangerous or hostile. However, such skills can’t
be built in isolation, and are more likely to develop if
supported. Going to a social networking service for the
first time as a young person alone can be compared to a
young person’s first solo trip to a city centre, and thus is
important for a young person to know how to stay safe in
this new environment.

Young people developing key and real-world skills

Managing an online presence and being able to interact

effectively online is becoming an increasingly important
skill in the workplace. Being able to quickly adapt to
new technologies, services and environments is already
regarded as a highly valuable skill by employers, and
can facilitate both formal and informal learning. Most
services are text based, which encourages literacy skills,
including interpretation, evaluation and contextualisation.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR EDUCATION

Developing e-portfolios

E-portfolios are an online space where learners can

record their achievements and collect examples of
their work. E-portfolios don’t have to be restricted to
institutional provision. Learners can be encouraged to
think about setting up “professional personal” sites for
exploring and promoting their talents and interests. Or
they might want to save or export social networking
services activity as evidence of their skills; for example, a
forum thread which demonstrates their negotiation skills,
or a personal site or post which acts as a great example
of their self-motivation and passion.

Literacy and communication skills

Using sites to communicate, collaborate and create

means learners use and can develop a wide range of
literacy skills.

Collaboration and group work

Young people already use a host of technologies – for

instance, instant messaging programs such as MSN – to
work together on an any-time, anywhere basis. By using
social networking services’ collaborative tools or setting
up groups, young people can semi-formalise their efforts
and document discussions and milestones as they go.

Learning about data protection and copyright issues

Data protection is an important issue for anyone who

creates, uploads or downloads content online. Young
people should consider who has permission to use
online content. Considering the benefits of making it
easier for others to use or reuse content, looking at the
commercial implications of licensing, and understanding
what kinds of permissions service providers request,
is a compelling way to start investigating differences in
licensing agreements (for example, Creative Commons
licensing) and the terms of service agreements.
Equipping young people to fully understand what
permissions they can choose or agree to is an important
digital literacy skill which can help develop creative,
social or entrepreneurial skills.
Learning about self-representation and presentation
– thinking about how you might be viewed across
different contexts

An important part of digital literacy is understanding

how distributed activity – the things that we do across a
wide range of different websites – affects the impression
we make on other people. Managing our web presence
– understanding how to use permissions to keep
information private or share it with specific individuals –
is essential for getting the most out of communications
platforms and for keeping control of any personal
information that we choose to share. Thinking through
personal rules for sharing or making information public is
a useful strategy.

Learning about e-safety issues

E-safety covers a range of online issues but ties

in firmly to the real world: staying safe, keeping
personal information safe, protecting yourself and your
belongings. Making sure that we don’t participate in
bullying or other anti-social behaviour, and helping out
other people who might affected by these issues, is a
key part of digital citizenship.
Producing public showcases for work, events
or organisations

Social networking services can be a great way to quickly

create websites to advertise or showcase events or
groups, or to present work.

Forming communities of practice

Educators have long recognised the value of using

blogs as a way of creating, making visible and fostering
networks around particular topics or interests. More
recently, educators have been exploring the range of
Web 2.0 tools: wikis, virtual worlds and social networking
services, including video- and photo-management sites.
Educators and other professionals are increasingly
using social networking services to form communities
and connect to others who share their interests. Ning in
Education (http://education.ning.com) and Second Life
Grid (http://secondlifegrid.net/programs/education)
are examples of umbrella groups that support educators
using or wanting to use Web 2.0 tools for education.
Organising and scheduling work (time management)

Most social networking services have calendar tools

that learners can use to schedule their personal and
educational timetables. Some can export or import
events from other web-based calendars, or third-party
applications may exist that can help with this. Working
publicly or in groups where others share your calendar or
events can be a great motivator.

Being where learners are

In addition to providing a whole community with useful

information about a school, college, organisation or
event, a profile on a social network sends a clear
message to learners that you are aware of the types of
spaces they enjoy online. This is a good reminder that
these spaces are public and inhabited by people who
may not necessarily be within their friendship networks,
encouraging them to look at issues around permissions
and sharing personal information. During Childnet’s
research into cyberbullying, children and young people
said that one of the reasons they wouldn’t tell their
teachers about being bullied online was that they didn’t
think staff understood the types of services they used.
Asserting a presence online sends a clear message
that you know what services that are popular with your
learners and understand the usefulness of these services
to them, and that you would understand if they had a
problem and wanted to come and talk to you about it.

PRIVACY AND SAFETY

From qualitative research it appears that concerns about privacy and

safety are not ‘top of mind’ for most users The people who use social
networking sites see them as a fun and easy leisure activity. Although the
subject of much discussion in the media, in qualitative research
privacy and safety issues on social networking sites did not emerge as ‘top
of mind’ for most users. In discussion, and after prompting, some users in
the qualitative study did think of some privacy and safety issues, although
on the whole they were unconcerned about them. In addition, our
qualitative study found that all users, even those who were confident with
ICT found the settings on most of the major social networking sites difficult
to understand and manipulate. Several areas of potentially risky behaviour
are suggested by the qualitative and/or quantitative research. These
include:
• Leaving privacy settings as default ‘open’

41% of children aged 8-17 who had a visible profile had their profile set so
that it was visible to anyone (Children, young people and online content
quantitative research) and 44% of adults who had a current profile said
their profile could be seen by anyone6 (this was more likely among those
aged 18-24).

• Giving out sensitive personal information, photographs and other

content

Our qualitative research found that some users willingly gave out sensitive
personal information. This was supported by the Get Safe Online research
which found that 25% of registered social networking users had posted
sensitive personal data about themselves on their profiles. This included
details such as their phone number, home address or email address.
Younger adults are even more likely to do this, with 34% of 16-24 year olds
willingly posting this information;

• Posting content (especially photos) that could be reputationally

damaging

Examples ranged from posting provocative photos to photographs of

teachers drinking and smoking being seen by their pupils and pupils’
parents; and
• Contacting people they didn’t know (and/or didn’t know well)
online/accepting people they didn’t know as ‘friends’

17% of adult users said they talked to people on social networking sites
that they didn’t know and 35% spoke to people who were “friends of
friends” Our qualitative research indicates that some people are more likely
than others to engage in potentially risky behaviour. This suggests that
communications about the implications of potentially risky behaviour may
need to be looked at in different ways for different groups of people.
Our qualitative research also showed that on the whole users appeared
unconcerned about these risks. There are several reasons for this, which
include, in no particular order:

• a lack of awareness of the issues;

• an assumption that privacy and safety issues have been taken care of by
the sites themselves;

• low levels of confidence among users in their ability to manipulate privacy

settings; The result for adult privacy settings is not directly comparable to
that of children due to different questions and sample size in the studies

• information on privacy and safety being hard to find on sites;

• a feeling among younger users that they are invincible;

• a perception that social networking sites are less dangerous than other
online activities, such as internet banking; and, for some,

• having consciously evaluated the risks, making the decision that they
could be managed.

Discussions with children and adults using social networking sites

highlighted an important point. This was that there is a clear overlap
between the benefits and risks of some online social networking activities.
For example, the underlying point of social networking is to share
information. However the risk is that leaving privacy settings open means
that the user cannot control who sees their information or how they use it.
Forty-four per cent of adults with current social networking profiles said that
their profile was visible to anyone, while 41% of 8-17 year olds with visible
profiles said their profile could be seen by anyone. The potential risks that
we have highlighted raise a number of issues for industry and policy
makers. These include how best to enforce the minimum age limits, how to
ensure accessible and easy-to-understand privacy and safety policies,
educating children, parents and adults about the privacy and safety
implications of social networking sites, and the issue of privacy settings
being set to default ‘open’.
SOME EXAMPLES OF SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES

 Sixdegrees
 Livejornal
 Asian avenue
 Black planet
 My space
 Orkut
 Hi5
 Facebook
 Twitter
SIXDEGREES

SixDegrees.com was a social network service website that lasted from

1997 to 2001 and was based on the Web of Contacts model of social
networking. It was named after the six degrees of separation concept and
allowed users to list friends, family members and acquaintances both on
the site and externally; external contacts were invited to join the site. Users
could send messages and post bulletin board items to people in their first,
second, and third degrees, and see their connection to any other user on
the site. It was one of the first manifestations of a social networking
websites in the format now seen today. Six Degrees was followed by more
successful social networking sites based on the "Social-circles network
model" such as Friendster, MySpace, LinkedIn, XING and Facebook.
LIVE JOURNAL

LiveJournal (often abbreviated LJ) is a virtual

community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary.
LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open
source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual
community. LiveJournal's blogging features include those found in similar
blogging sites (multiple authors, commenting, calendars, and
polls). However, LiveJournal differentiates itself from other blogging sites by
its WELL-like features of a self-contained community and some social
networking features similar to other social networking sites. LiveJournal
was started on April 15, 1999 by Brad Fitzpatrick as a way of keeping his
high school friends updated on his activities.
ASIAN AVENUE

Originally named AsianAvenue (or Asian Avenue), the site was launched
on July 21, 1997 by co-founders Benjamin Sun, Peter Chen, Grace Chang,
Michael Montero, and Calvin Wong. By 1998, The New York
Times described it as "unusually successful" despite being "run out of an
apartment", having hit five million page views from 50,000 users.

Members were politically active, protesting an MSNBC headline for

the 1998 Winter Olympics reading "American beats out Kwan", referring to
U.S. Olympic teammates Tara Lipinski and Michelle Kwan. In 1999,
members protested an ad for SKYY vodka showing a partly-dressed white
woman being served by a woman in a Mandarin dress and chopsticks in
her hair, which the protesters said perpetuated racial stereotypes.[4] After
some 300 postings on Asian Avenue were forwarded to SKYY, the
company agreed to stop using the ad.

The site received over 70,000 unique visitor hits in August 2000. ] At its
peak, there were over 2 million users with more than 5000 online at any
time. Robert X. Cringelyclaimed in 2000 that Asian Avenue had more
members than BlackPlanet, a Community Connect sister site.
BLACK PLANET

Blackplanet.com is an online niche social-networking site targeted

especially for the Black American community. It was launched September 1
1999 by Omar Wasow.

In December 2007 it was the 4th highest trafficked social-networking site

according to the internet monitoring site Hitwise. As of June 2007 there
were 16.5 million members and 80 million page views.

In April 2008, Radio One, the media empire begun by media

magnate Cathy Hughes, acquired BlackPlanet and its parent company
Community Connect Inc. for $38 million, along with partner sites Mi
Gente and Asian Avenue.
MYSPACE

MySpace is a social networking website. Its headquarters are in Beverly

Hills, California, US, where it shares an office building with its immediate
owner, News Corp. Digital Media, owned by News Corporation. MySpace
became the most popular social networking site in theUnited States in June
2006. According to comScore, MySpace was overtaken internationally by
its main competitor, Facebook, in April 2008, based on monthly unique
visitors. MySpace employs 1,000 employees, after laying off 30% of its
workforce in June 2009; the company does not
disclose revenues or profits separately from News Corporation. The 100
millionth account was created on August 9, 2006, in theNetherlands.

The very first MySpace users were eUniverse employees. The company
held contests to see who could sign-up the most users. The company then
used its resources to push MySpace to the masses. eUniverse used its 20
million users and e-mail subscribers to quickly breathe life into MySpace,
and move it to the head of the pack of social networking websites. A key
architect was tech expert Toan Nguyen who helped stabilize the MySpace
platform when Brad Greenspan asked him to join the team.
ORKUT

Orkut is a social networking website that is owned and operated by Google

Inc. The service is designed to help users meet new friends and maintain
existing relationships. The website is named after its creator, Google
employee Orkut Büyükkökten.

Although Orkut is less popular in the United States than

competitors Facebook and MySpace, it is one of the most visited websites
in India and Brazil. In fact, as of December 2009, 51.09% of Orkut's users
are from Brazil, followed by India with 20.02% and United States with
17.28%.

Originally hosted in California, in August 2008 Google announced that

Orkut would be fully managed and operated in Brazil, by Google Brazil, in
the city of Belo Horizonte. This was decided due to the large Brazilian user
base and growth of legal issues.

As of February 2010, Alexa traffic ranked Orkut 57th in the world; the
website currently has more than 100 million active users worldwide.

Orkut was launched on January 24, 2004 by Google as an independent

project of Orkut Büyükkökten .The community membership was originally
by invitation only. Orkut's explanation for invitation.
" Orkut is unique, because it's an organically growing network of trusted
friends. That way we won't grow too large, too quickly and everyone will
have at least one person to vouch for them. If you know someone who is a
member of Orkut, that person can invite you to join as well. If you don't
know an Orkut member, wait a bit and most likely you soon will. We look
forward to having you as part of the Orkut community."

HI5

Hi5 is a social networking website. The company was founded in 2003

by Ramu Yalamanchi. In early 2010, hi5 acquired social gaming company,
Big Six. The company also announced it has raised $3 million convertible
note from existing investor Mohr Davidow, bringing the funding up to $3
million. In Hi5, users create an online profile in order to show information
such as interests, age and hometown and upload user pictures where
users can post comments. Hi5 also allows the user to create personal
photo albums and set up a music player in the profile. Users can also send
friend requests via e-mail to other users. When a person receives a friend
request, he may accept or decline it, or block the user altogether. If the user
accepts another user as a friend, the two will be connected directly or in the
1st degree. The user will then appear on the person's friend list and vice-
versa.

Some users opt to make their profiles available for everyone on Hi5 to view.
Other users exercise the option to make their profile viewable only to those
people who are in their network. The network of friends consists of a user's
direct friends (1st degree), the friends of those direct friends (2nd degree)
and the friends of the friends of direct friends (3rd degree).

FACEBOOK

Facebook is a social networking website that is operated and privately

owned by Facebook, Inc.Since September 2006, anyone over the age of 13
with a valid e-mail address can become a Facebook user. Facebook's
target audience is more for an adult demographic than a youth
demographic. Users can add friends and send them messages, and update
their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Additionally, users
can join networks organized by workplace, school, or college. The website's
name stems from the colloquial name of books given to students at the
start of the academic year by university administrations in the US with the
intention of helping students to get to know each other better.

Facebook was founded by Mark Zuckerberg with his college roommates

and fellow computer science students Eduardo Saverin, Dustin
Moskovitz and Chris Hughes. The website's membership was initially
limited by the founders to Harvard students, but was expanded to other
colleges in the Boston area, the Ivy League, and Stanford University. It later
expanded further to include (potentially) any university student, then high
school students, and, finally, to anyone aged 13 and over. The website
currently has more than 400 million active users worldwide.

TWITTER

Twitter is a social networking and microblogging service that enables its

users to send and read messages known as tweets. Tweets are text-
based posts of up to 140 characters displayed on the author's profile page
and delivered to the author's subscribers who are known as followers.
Senders can restrict delivery to those in their circle of friends or, by default,
allow open access. Since late 2009, users can follow lists of authors
instead of following individual authors. All users can send and receive
tweets via the Twitter website, Short Message Service (SMS) or external
applications. While the service itself costs nothing to use, accessing it
through SMS may incur phone service provider fees.

Since its creation in 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Twitter has gained notability and
popularity worldwide. It is sometimes described as "SMS of
theInternet." The use of Twitter's application programming interface for
sending and receiving text messages by other applications often eclipses
direct use of Twitter.
NOTABLE USAGE

Use in campaigning
Use in legal proceedings
Use in education
Use in emergencies
Use in protest and politics
Use in public relations
Use in space mission news
Used to survey opinion
Use in business
Use in fund raising
Use in prank

Here’s one of the charts showing top social networking usage by

site:
Social Networking Sites- Boon Or Curse !!!!
The 21st Century is said to be the Reign of Computers and Internet.
Internet is like “Aladdin Ka Chirag” from which we can ask for anything and
our demand will be fulfilled, but there is no barrier of only “Three Wishes”.
Today, with the ever modernizing world, the Internet is proving to be a very
useful tool for those who don’t have time from their work, for those who
want to keep pace with the world.

Keeping in touch with the knowns, whether relatives or friends or someone

else, seems to be a difficult task to every working person, whether a
student, a businessman or some officer, these days! So what’s the solution
to the problem? Social networking Sites!

Yes, the Social Networking Sites like Facebook, Orkut, MySpace, LinkedIn,
Twitter…….. etc are a powerful medium to stay in touch with your friends,
far away relatives, old teachers and even find your long-lost chaddi-
buddies. Isn’t that great!!!

Might be a “Yes” for some and a topic of discussion(and worry) for the
others!!?? But what’s the matter of worry? The answer is that such social
networking sites are a platform for making friends, joining groups and
networks, sharing pictures and videos, posting scraps and messages etc,
which might not be a good deal for the kids, pre-teens and teens even.
There might be anti-social elements active on such sites and privacy &
security are also topics of concern on these sites.

It is upon the user himself/herself that how carefully and judiciously he/she
uses this “resource”. Parents and teachers may also play a vital role in
guiding under-18s about such sites.
It is not like that no one should use such sites, but the betterment is in the
careful use of these networks!

Educational Benefits Of Social Networking Sites

In a first-of-its-kind study, researchers at the University of Minnesota have

discovered the educational benefits of social networking sites such as
MySpace and Facebook. The same study found that low-income students
are in many ways just as technologically proficient as their counterparts,
going against what results from previous studies have suggested.

The study found that, of the students observed, 94 percent used the
Internet, 82 percent go online at home and 77 percent had a profile on a
social networking site. When asked what they learn from using social
networking sites, the students listed technology skills as the top lesson,
followed by creativity, being open to new or diverse views and
communication skills.
Data were collected over six months this year from students, ages 16 to 18,
in thirteen urban high schools in the Midwest. Beyond the surveyed
students, a follow-up, randomly selected subset were asked questions
about their Internet activity as they navigated MySpace, an online forum
that provides users with e-mail, web communities and audio and video
capabilities.
"What we found was that students using social networking sites are actually
practicing the kinds of 21st century skills we want them to develop to be
successful today," said Christine Greenhow, a learning technologies
researcher in the university's College of Education and Human
Development and principal investigator of the study. "Students are
developing a positive attitude towards using technology systems, editing
and customizing content and thinking about online design and layout.
They're also sharing creative original work like poetry and film and
practicing safe and responsible use of information and technology. The
Web sites offer tremendous educational potential."
Greenhow said that the study's results, while proving that social networking
sites offer more than just social fulfillment or professional networking, also
have implications for educators, who now have a vast opportunity to
support what students are learning on the Web sites.
"Now that we know what skills students are learning and what experiences
they're being exposed to, we can help foster and extend those skills," said
Greenhow. "As educators, we always want to know where our students are
coming from and what they're interested in so we can build on that in our
teaching. By understanding how students may be positively using these
networking technologies in their daily lives and where the as yet
unrecognized educational opportunities are, we can help make schools
even more relevant, connected and meaningful to kids."

Responses
 • I feel it’s been a blessing.

To be honest I first started blogging via Bebo during a huge and very
sudden time of change. By blogging about what I was doing and posting
pics on Bebo, my friends and family could keep track of me, or they found
where I had gone when they came back from easter hols and I suddenly
wasn’t there anymore.

I’ve loved getting to know folks through blogging – and have e-mailed a fair
few too. It’s been fun and encouraging. It’s helped when I’ve had questions
or wanted inspiration or ideas. I hope that I do get to know some of my
‘blog friends’ in person one day. (I say that, but there are number of
bloggers in my church I have twitter/blog conversations with yet don’t speak
to them ‘in real life’).

Facebook has kept me in touch with old friends who I can’t see as much
anymore. It’s been especially good for sharing photos of my friends’ kids in
particular – to share the marvel as they are first born and grow up and
develop. It also makes things so much easier when we do finally get to see
each other ‘in person’ as we’ve kept in contact easily.

- Genelia Ryan

• Social networking has really taken off in recent years, and completely
rocketed in the past few months. Twitter is just one example, really
 becoming extremely popular with celebrity users, and endorsements
from people like President Obama, and Stephen Fry.

I have been chatting to a few people recently about this rather

interesting subject recently.

I was chatting to Rick about whether twitter or second life for example
actually enhance relationships, or are we unintentionally growing apart
because of our love affair with technology. Are computer screens replacing
faces, is the keyboard replacing our vocal chords?
I read this article the other day, about how social networking is harming our
health.

People’s health could be harmed by social networking sites because they

reduce levels of face-to-face contact, an expert claims.

Dr Aric Sigman says websites such as Facebook set out to enrich social
lives, but end up keeping people apart.

Even as I sit and type this I guess I can’t help but feel a little hypocritical.
For you guys reading my blog, how many of you actually know me? For all
you know this blog could just be a front, and I could be pretending to be
someone that I’m not, and you wouldn’t know the difference. Having said
that, most of my blog readers are genuine friends that I do interact with in
real life.

I was thinking about this last week as I went out to the Belfast Twestival, I
got seriously slagged off for heading to it. It essentially was a charity
fundraiser event, organised via twitter, where twitter users in each city met
up. Now while I will agree that on some level it is a fairly geeky gathering, I
think it isn’t as bad as many people would initially think. Here’s what I
mean, what is worse, having quite a few friends online, or ‘followers’ in
twitter terms, living within a few miles of you, and never meeting them? Or
having these friends and people online, but actually meeting them in real
life, going to gigs, etc…

For me, personally, I enjoy using social networking to keep in touch with
friends that have moved away from home, and people that I don’t get to
catch up with very often. As well as that I use twitter, and blogs etc to
connect with, and get to know other people across the world, I can chat
with other photographers, and stuff, who without social networking I
wouldn’t have heard of.

- Ketan Rai
CURSE..!!!

Facebook Fatigue - The curse of Social Networking sites

Let me start in saying that I feel Facebook is the

freshest and most genius site to come along in a
long time. There really is 'genius at work' going on.

Since they opened it up to anyone and everyone it

has grown in popularity immensely and is now
crossing into Canada, the UK, South Africa and elsewhere. In the last
couple of months, the number of users has doubled.

If you don't yet think that you need to be on Facebook then consider this a
very firm 'wink' that you do. It's where all the action is and will almost
certainly help reconnect you with old friends and find new people (and new
distribution outlets) too.

If like me you were put off by the spam-a-minute MySpace and its still
ridiculously pathetic search facility then you'll be very pleased to know that
Facebook has nailed both these issues. Use of the site is a pleasure in
comparison to MySpace.

Everything on Facebook is executed brilliantly and nowhere more is this

obvious than the recent 'mixing desk' addition for adjusting the frequency
and substance of your newsfeed content from friends.

Facebook is a much better and more grown up MySpace, and as a 'social

utility', to connect you with old friends and keep you connected with existing
ones, it fulfills its mandate brilliantly. Post some photos of your recent
holiday, friends will be notified, find a link that you think is interesting, share
it easily with your friends - text, audio or video.

Facebook's recent opening up of its site to outside developers means that

new applications are coming along thick and fast, although I question the
ramifications of this down the road. Facebook has a reputation for
delivering in-house applications that 'just work' - they must have been
sorely tempted to stay a closed system like Apple.

Growth of the site is mind-blowing. According to Compete.com they've

grown 33% in the last couple of months to 20 million users. According
to Alexa, which tracks better for global trends, they've doubled in size in the
same period.

But Facebook and all social networking sites for that matter face a growing
problem - the problem of fashion.

Social networking sites by their very nature are trend based. They can be
fashionable for a bit, but after a while a new one comes along which is
cooler. Switching between two social networking applications is becoming a
right of passage, 'you're still using Friendster? That's so last year'.

Facebook have partly addressed this by pitching their offering as an

application - a social utility. This is smart on their part, but by itself may not
be enough to save them in the long run. The truth of the matter is that once
you get over the initial euphoria of finding old friends, and becoming
comfortable with the actual number of friends you have listed, your use of
the site dwindles. Friendster faced this problem and has fallen by the
wayside. Bebo, after initially even more explosive growth than Facebook,
has now levelled off and is treading water.

So does this mean social networking sites are no different from trendy
nightclubs or this season's clothes? To an extent yes. Websites have
entered the world of fashion by exposing the site we use most to our
friends.

It may well be that social networking sites transcend all this by continuing to
offer genuine utility or huge lock in. MySpace is still huge, but that's
because of the heavy customization it allows its users which Facebook has
stayed clear from, and its URL structure. Users of MySpace are less likely
to switch to another site than users of Facebook - there's more investment.
Facebook almost makes it too easy.

Negative/bad experience from networking sites:

Generally the networking sites have been of great utility to the users and
they have found it of immense importance. But some people have had bad
experiences from these networking sites. These bad experiences have
been seen observed more by

the female users than male users. The verification of genuine identity of the
people is a problem. Many users have suffered from the same. People
pose as someone else and tend to seek personal or confidential
knowledge. This has led to breach of trust of a section of respondents. The
albums are accessible to everyone and as such the pictures can be easily
copied and have even been distorted in some cases and put on fake
profiles. Same is the case with scrapbooks or message boxes which is
visible to everyone. Information meant for one person is visible to everyone
and is often harmful in relations. Some unknown people also put their

comments on the scrapbooks to attract undue attention. The language is

also offensive on many occasions.

The communities have even created furore over national and religious
sentiments. Due to absence of any strict monitoring, communities targeted
to humiliate one or the other community has mushroomed. Communities
like “I hate Muslims” or “I hate Hindus” have created differences among the
people and have often invited unwanted tension and rift. Some community
had an Indian flag burning which shook the entire users of India and the
national sentiments as a whole.
 ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF SOCIAL
NETWORKING SITES

ADVANTAGES

1) Some social networks are good opportunities to find a job

Nowadays the big companies have specialists on human resources that
search for profiles in these kind of sites to recruit new collaborators. If you
´re looking for job you can create a profile (a serious, professional and
complete profile) and you might be discovered and recruited by a company.
You can describe your capabilities and publish some of your works - and
with a little luck you can find a job.

2) You can meet new people

Social networking sites are the perfect spot to neet new people online. With
the help of advanced search tools you can find users who have the same
interests you do and that can be the starting point of a great friendship
and/or relationship. Many people meet online and then stabilish a
relationship in real life - getting married, having children, etc

3) You can overcome your timidity

Contacting with other people through the internet becomes more easier for
shy people. Shy people can overcome this using social networking
platforms to stabilish contacts. Later the interaction it´s more easier
because they have already talked and interacted online.
4) You can promote your site or business for free
If you have a business or site you need to promote you can do it by
creating a business profile on some of these networks. You can load
images, your logo, etc. into your profile and it will be visible for your virtual
friends and all the users who visit your profile. You can also put topics on
groups related to your business and stabilish new contacts that can lead to
sales, subscriptions or anything else.

5) Refined Search
Only social networking sites offer internet users with a search directory that
you can use to locate particular individuals or groups. You can search by
categories like location, industry, interests and other unique preferences.
This way, you do not waste your time and resources establishing
connection with people you and your business have nothing in common
with.

6) Affordable visibility

Since most of these social networking sites are free, you should maximize
them. Make sure that the profile you created will be interesting for the
readers. Also, you should make it more personalized by adding interesting
articles, images, videos and even reviews of your products.

7) Receptive Members

The concept of social networking sites lies on the premise that members
have at least one thing in common. Because of this, it is not surprising that
you will receive messages from people you do not really know or likewise,
you could be interested in establishing contact with some of the members
who might interest you.

8) Built-in Group

Starting a discussion is not difficult with social networking sites

compared to growing one on your site. With the millions of visitors
and members, you will have no problem with attracting participants.
Discussion groups are also the best place to do some soft selling.
You can accomplish this by lending your expertise on particular
subjects.

9) Expand Network Easily

The key to establishing a successful online business is being visible

to other people outside your network. The fact that you are connected
to these people because of an existing connection with one of your
contacts, make you more trustworthy. Compared to approaching
someone on the street, social networking sites would provide you with
considerable marketing advantage.

We should notice of all these Social Networking

advantages as they will show you the unlimited possibilities that can
be provided by these social networking sites. Its role has evolved as a
medium where old friends meet and new relationships are created.
Today, online businesses consider these sites as the best resources
of new ideas as well as potential buyers.
DISADVANTAGES

• People gets attractive towards something that they don't want to be a

part of.

• Younger one gets exposure to illegal content, anti-social elements

and wrong people.

• People gets addicted to it.

• Personal information no longer remain personal.

• Because of these sites, people don't have any social activities.

• they are becoming the part of this virtual world of socialism.

CONTROVERSY REPORT

In the past two to three

years since the gradual
emergence of web 2.0,
collaborative and
interactive web services
have begun to take over
the internet. Even online
stores created to sell
products have not been
left behind in this new
trend. Every establishment is trying to incorporate interactivity into their
websites whether through blogs, games or wikis in order to improve the
experience of the regular visitor. Indeed, social networking has been by far
the most engaging and popular among all the services that the web 2.0
craze has brought. Social networking as understood by everybody is a
service that allows users to share different kinds of content and connect
with each other. Shared content could include music, pictures, videos,
writings, quotes, shopping information or a hybrid of some or all of them.
Social networking is also known for its ability to connect people together
whether they had known each other in the past or not.

Social networking is becoming a bigger issue everyday as more people join

and waste a lot of time on the internet. Social networking is known for its
ability to be addictive because of its collaborative nature which people
enjoy a lot. People spend time uploading pictures, videos and other
content. They also spend time looking at other people's content,
commenting on them and fraternizing with them through these networks. In
the business world, more corporate organizations are looking at social
networks as a potential money maker because of its customer referral
abilities. A good example is Facebook which this author is going to refer to
in the rest of this article because of its emerging popularity. Facebook
boasts of over 100 million users from various parts of the world. Using the
author as a case study, he joined in September 2006 with the major aim of
connecting with friends from high school and primary school. After joining
Facebook, the author discovered that he began checking Facebook like he
was checking his e-mail. His workflow immediately he got to work or his
room was to check his mail, then his Facebook account. He actually had a
lot of situations where the latter came first. The major thing that kept him
hooked to Facebook was the fact that he could see what all his friends
were up to and he could upload his own content to show his friends what
he had been up to. After doing some research, he found out that he was
not the only one who was having problems getting off the Facebook hook.
The simple explanation is that Facebook provides us with all the personal
information such as relationship status, gossip and all other things which
interest us as human beings. Those are the things that make Facebook an
addictive social network. Facebook is not the only social network with this
addictive ability. Youtube and Imeem which are video and music social
networks respectively among others have become an addiction to their
users. The effects are countless but a few include poor productivity in
working places and misplaced priorities in situations where users have
other important engagements to attend to. Those two alone are bad
enough to totally write off social networking as a terrible effect to our
society. However, does that mean there are no positive effects?

Social networking is known to have its good effects too and whether the
advantages outweigh the disadvantages is still a controversy. However,
social networking has some important advantages that are worth
considering. Social networking has made it easier for people to find each
other. Most of the time, all the author needed was to type the name of an
individual or long lost friend he was looking for and he was provided with a
link to their Facebook profile. Facebook has become a tool that not only
provides people with the ability to connect together but also gives people
the ability to be a part of each other's lives and knowing what is happening
at almost every point in time in a friend's life as long as they disclose it. In
application to the Nigerian institutions, social networking is becoming a fad
among professionals. Various people in different phases and professions in
corporate Nigeria have began to use Facebook for both its social and
professional benefits. Facebook is now used to publicize Nigerian brands,
events and companies. A few Nigerian creative trades such as musicians,
movie makers, photographers and their likes have begun to use Facebook
as a vehicle to gain exposure and let people have an air of the services
they render. PR and marketing professionals in Nigeria are getting more
pro-active about using the internet to serve their clients and researching
into various methods that can be used to accomplish their marketing and
advertisement goals through social networks. The diverse audience on
social networks makes it easy to reach out to a large set of people if
publicity is done right. This opens doors to possibilities in terms of
communication.
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

A considerable amount of work has been done in this field and several
articles are available on the internet and magazines about the social
networking sites. So first we carried out a literature survey of the available
data for collection of secondary information. We followed it by a descriptive
research design in order to understand the problem and carry out the
research in a lucid manner.

Data Collection method: After secondary data collection through data

collection over the internet, a primary research was carried out through a
questionnaire. The questionnaire was well structured and the responses
were sought from the respondents. The nature of the questions was such
that it avoided ambiguous responses from the respondents and it also
helped in quick analysis of the data collected.

Two methods of questioning were used for the data collection:

1). Person Assisted: The responses were collected by personal

questioning. The responses were taken from the students.This form of
questioning helped the respondent to understand the questions better and
answer accordingly.
2). Web enabled: The questionnaire was e-mailed to respondents who
filled it and then mailed it back to me. A flaw that I realized here was that
some of the respondents did not understand the questions and hence could
not answer them to the best of their capability, unlike the other method
employed where the questions could be explained if required.

SAMPLING:

Sampling Design: The target population for my research was defined as

the students who form the major chunk of users of these social networking
sites. This was done to have a better insight into the research as the target
population was one which is the most avid user of these sites and could
provide good responses. Even the understanding of the questionnaire was
easy to them as they were familiar with the sites and quite clear about the
reasons they use it for and the various problems that they face.

The extent of the survey was limited. However, through online survey some
regions outside Moradabad were also reached to validate the information
collected from Moradabad.

Sampling frame can be defined as all the users of social networking sites
in the vicinity.

Once the sampling frame was decided, simple random sampling method
was used to select the respondents. In the person assisted survey, almost
everyone in the sampling frame had an equal chance of being selected and
we got the responses filled through those people who were readily and
willingly accepting to fill it.

Social Networking research: qualitative research

METHODOLOGY Qualitative face to face survey

CORE OBJECTIVE To identify, explore and understand the

behaviours, attitudes and barriers to

people’s use of social networking sites.

To understand the level of current

exposure to harmful or inappropriate

content and differences in behaviour

between parents and children.

SAMPLE SIZE 100

 ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION

The popularity of the social networking sites is immense, specially amongst

the youth. The sample chosen had a majority of students from the B-
Schools. Analysis of the data tells us that 98% of the students uses at least
one of the networking sites.

Male 69%
Female 31%

31%

male
female

69%
below 15 yrs 2
15-19 yrs 0
20-24 yrs 64
25-29 yrs 28
30 yrs and above 1

70
64
60
50
40
30 below15 yrs
28 15-19 yrs
20
10 20-24 yrs
2 25-29 yrs
0 0
below 15 yrs

1
20-24 yrs

30 yrs and above

30 yrs and
above
How many sites do the respondents use?

59% of the respondents use only 1 site regularly, 2% using no such

networking sites and 39% of them using more than 1 site. Out of the ones
who use more than one site, 31% amongst them use two sites and 5 % use
three sites with an exception of 3% use four and above networking sites.
Option sites percentag
s used e
a 4 3
b 3 5
c 2 31
d 1 59
e 0 2

Number of nteworking sites used

70
percentage users

60

50

40

30

20

10

0
1 2 3 4 5
number of sites used
By this we infer that although these networking sites are getting very
popular these days, most of the students use one site with the second
majority being of those who use two networking sites.
Now we will analyze which sites are the most popular ones.

Sites Users
Only Orkut 57
Orkut 94
Facebook 34
Yaari 6
My space 6
Hi5 6

Popularity of sites

100
90
80
70
60
Percentage users 50 94
40
30 57
20 34
10 6 6 6
0
Only Orkut Facebook Yaari My space Hi5
Orkut
Sites
Orkut is a hands down winner in this regard. One major interpretation here
is that 59% users who use only 1 networking sites, 99% of them use orkut.
Considering the overall data, 94% students
seem to use orkut site which makes it the most
popular one. The second most popular is
facebook which is used by 34% people
followed by a 6% share by each yaari,
myspace and Hi5.
The number of hours spent on these
Hours Respon networking sites should be analyzed here to
per week dents determine what impact it would have on the
15 13 users. The more the time spent, more
probability of these sites being beneficial is
10 to 14 15 there.
6 to 9 22
3 to 5 24
1 to 2 18
less than
1 8
What else these students would be doing if not surfing on these sites
during that time. When we asked that question during the survey, we
arrived at a number of such things?

Percenta
Activites ge
Studying 18
Socialising 48
Constructive
work 11
Reading
novels 22
Others 8

Most of the students would use the spare time for Socialising or hanging
out with friends if they were not using these networking sites. 40% were of
the opinion that they would be studying or reading novels and books which
means that these networking sites are leaving the students with less time to
study and to read books and novels. 8% said that they would be doing
some other things like social work, sports, pursuing their hobbies etc.

What is it that attracts the students to spend time surfing rather than doing
other things mentioned above. Some said it was because they could make
more friends, some said it was easier for them to stay in touch with their
existing friends, for others it was to find old friends, to share a love
relationship with or to find and interact with people with common interests.

Let us see what made these sites the most attractive:

Usage Percentage
to make new friends 20
to find old friends 52
to communicate with existing
friends 60
for relationships 6
to find people with common

interests 8

This shows that the desire to find old friends along with the need to
communicate with the existing friends is making more and more students
use these networking sites. In only rare case, people are looking for
relationships over there. Also 20% tend to use these sites for making new
friends.
The impact on youth can also be determined by analysing if these people
have met anyone in personal through these networking sites.

Personal meetings

W ho met through
networking sites
W ho did not meet
through these sites

About 29% of the users have met someone personally through these
networking sites which is a huge number as it takes a lot of trust in meeting
someone personally. Here, the question arises regarding safety and trust
as a lot of people fake their profiles.
For some, these networking sites make them feel comfortable in their
sexuality. For 49%, it is easier for them to be themselves while interacting
through these sites. It raises question as to how real they are while they act
with people in personal or in their normal routine life.

The networking sites for sure have some beneficial effects on the users.
Lets examine now how these social sites have benefited the users.

BENEFITS USERS
More friends 25%
Better connectivity 63%
Found my life partner 1%
Enjoy leisure or time when I am
alone 22%
Link with prospective recruiters 7%

Better connectivity is what these sites definitely provide. Also people seem
to have more friends through their use. It happens due to finding out old
friends and also remaining in close connection with the old as well as the
existing friends. This also gives its users a way to enjoy themselves or the
leisure time when they are alone. They can be themselves and also remain
in touch with friends at the same time.
Another benefit is the opportunity to connect with the prospective recruiters
and to find employment through these sites. Only an exception of 1% found
their life partners through this.
As per the survey, 80% of the people find that there is no as such negative
impact in their personal life. Only 20% of the sample population feels that
there is a negative impact on their personal lives.

NEGATIVE
IMPACT (a) 20%
POSITIVE
IMPACT (b) 80%

20%

80%

NEGATIVEIMPACT(a)
POSITIVEIMPACT(b)
From that of 20%, 55% feels that loss of time is the major cause of negative
impact while 20% feels its loss of privacy and 15% feels that it makes them
more dependent on electronic medium. Only 5% of the 20% people feel
that it creates some emotional disturbance or less emotional bonding in
relationships.

IF YES PERCENTAGE
LOSS OF PRIVACY (a) 4
LOSS OF TIME (b) 11
RELIANCE ON ELECTRONIC
MEDIUM (C) 3
LESS EMOTIONAL BOND IN

RELATION (d) 1
ANY OTHER (e) 1
 LOSS OF PRIVACY (a)
LOSS OF TIME (b)
RELIANCE ON ELECTRONIC MEDIUM (C)
LESS EMOTIONAL BOND IN RELATION (d)
ANY OTHER (e)
5%
5%
20%

15%

55%

There was no clear view that came out of the survey regarding the stand
whether parent’s discretion and monitoring is required while there children
use these social networking sites. Because 48% of the respondents
thought that it is required while 52% said that they don’t think it is correct.

PARENT'S DISCRETION AND

MONITERING REQUIRED
YES (a) 48%
NO(b) 52%
 48% YES (a)
52% NO(b)

The survey also shows that only 36 people feel that social networking sites
invade in their privacy. When we looked at the specific question asking
about if parents discretion and monitoring is required in this case for
children using these sites, we get almost 48 saying definitely yes. So we
see that these things indicate that there is no as such anything wrong with
the social networking sites and people find it useful too.

IF THERE IS INVASION OF
PRIVACY
YES (a) 36%
NO (b) 64%

36%

YES (a) NO (b)

64%

It clearly shows that social networking sites are having no crucial negative
impact on people’s life.

CONCLUSION
A social networking web site is an online community in which people can
connect to others with similar interests. Since their start in 1995 with
Classmates.com, social networking web sites have grown enormously to
include such huge sites today as hi5.com, Facebook.com, and orkut.com.
Through these sites businesses’ can use social networking web sites to
connect to potential employees, market new products, and get feedback on
their current products as well as new ideas for future products. Although
there are many valuable assets to social networking web sites, there are
also major issues that the sites must address such as the protection of
private information, the protection of children, and the protection of
copyrighted material. Although they have issues, social networking web
sites are still one of the best inventions of the modern era because they
connect so many people.

The work described above contributes to an on-going dialogue about the

importance of social network sites, both for practitioners and researchers.
Vast, uncharted waters still remain to be explored. Methodologically, SNS
researchers' ability to make causal claims is limited by a lack of
experimental or longitudinal studies. Although the situation is rapidly
changing, scholars still have a limited understanding of who is and who is
not using these sites, why, and for what purposes. Such questions will
require large-scale quantitative and qualitative research. We hope that our
findings and the work described here will help build a foundation for future
investigations of these and other important issues surrounding social
network sites.

LIMITATIONS
  The sample size that we have taken is 100 which we are assuming
that it is homogeneous and enough to carryout the research.

 Most of the sample population consists of students and hence our

research mainly focuses on students using social networking sites.

 The analysis done is mainly judgmental in nature.

 The concept of social networking sites is not very old in India thus
not much of research has been done in regards to its effects.

 The expertise of the questionnaire design is limited.

 The underlying assumption is that the survey conducted in limited

area represents the general psyche of the users of the social
networking site.

SUGGESTIONS

Some ideas for future research for social networking websites would be
personal contact offices to register on these sites to determine the
legitimacy of the person who is trying to register. Although this would most
likely end up a great hassle, it would provide the best security out there for
people who are trying to have safe fun and connect with people that share
similar interests and ideas.
Another future tool social networking websites could use would be a
licensing agreement with certain parties to prevent copyright infringement
from happening on the Internet.

Here are some ‘Golden Rules of Networking’ that we suggest

to be followed:
1. Help without expecting immediate returns – you never know, if the small
favour you give to other person might get you his recommendation for the
coveted position in his company a few years down the line.

2. Pursue excellence in all you do – ensure that people recommend you

because of your good work

3. Be genuine – people will see through your façade sooner or later

To summarize at this point-

1. Use each interaction with someone as an opportunity to network – to

build a relationship

2. Base these interactions on the 3 principles to increase your effectiveness

at networking.

REFERENCES
WEBLIOGRAPHY

www.economist.com

www.resourceshelf.com

www.indiastudychannel.com

ebusinesswins.blogspot.com

ezinearticles.com

www.pewinternet.org

http://www.trendwatching.com/briefing

http://media.www.emorywheel.com/media

http://www.edutopia.org/community

http://www.educause.edu/

http://www.arcamax.com

www.libraryclips.blogsome.com

www.futurelab.com

www.ofcom.org

www.zengestrom.com

www.zephoria.org

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barnes, S. (2006) A privacy paradox: Social networking
in the United States

Becta (2006) Emergent technologies for

Learning

boyd, d.m. (2006) Social networking sites: my definition.

apophenia :: making connections where none previously
existed.

Engestrom, J. (2005) Why some social network services

work and others don’t – Or: the case for object-centered
sociality

Fraser, J. (2006) DOPA, social networks and keeping

young people safe

Green, H. & Hannon, C. (2007) Their space: Education for

a digital generation

Gross, R. & Acquisti, A. (2005). Information revelation

and privacy in online social networks

Owen, M., Grant, L., Sayers, S. & Facer, K. (2006) Social

software and learning.

Kann, M. E., Berry, J., Gany, C. & Zager, P. (2006) The

Internet and youth political participation

Roush, W. (2007) The moral panic over social-networking

Sites
Wenger, E. (1998) Communities of practice. Learning as
a social system

Stutzman, F. (2007). Unit structures. Social Network

Transitions

Tropea, J. (2007) A list of SMS services and groups and

mobile social networks

QUESTIONNAIRE

Name:
Gender

a. Male b. Female

Age-Group

a. Below 15 yrs b.15-19 yrs c. 20-24yrs d. 25- 29yrs e. 30yrs and

above

1. Do you use any social networking sites?

a. Yes b. No

If yes, continue. Otherwise terminate.

2. How many social networking sites do you use actively?

a. 4 and above b. 3 c. 2 d. 1
3. Select the sites that you use:

a. Orkut b. Facebook c. Yaari d. Myspace e. Hi5

f. Any others (please

specify)_________________________________

4. How many hours per week do you spend on using these sites?

a. 15 and above b. 10- 14 c. 6-9 d. 3-5 e. 1-2

f. less than 1

5. If you were not using these sites, what would you have done to utilise
that time?

a. studying b. hanging out with friends/socialising c. doing more

constructive work d. reading novels e. Any others( please
specify)__________

6. What do you use social networking sites for?

a. to make new friends b. to find old friends c. to communicate with

existing friends d. to find someone I can share a relationship with

e. to interact with people with common interests

7. Have you ever met someone in person that you have come to know
through a social network site?

a. Yes b. No

8. Do you think social network sites help you to feel comfortable in your
sexuality?

a. Yes b. No

9. How has social networking sites benefited you as a user?

a. I have more friends

b. I am able to connect easily with my existing friends.

c. I have found a life-partner through these sites.

d. I find it a great way to enjoy my leisure or whenever I am alone.

e. Link with prospective recruiters and find employment.

10. Do you feel these networking sites have created any negative impact
on your personal life?

a. Yes b. No

If yes, then what do you feel can be these impacts?

a. Loss of privacy b. Loss of time c. More reliance on electronic

medium

d. Less emotional bonding in relations e. Emotional disturbance

e. Any others ( please specify)___________________________

11. Do you think that there is invasion of privacy through these networking
sites?

a. Yes b. No
12. Do you feel that parents’ discretion and monitoring is required in this
case for children using these sites?

a. Yes b. No

13. Do these networking sites influence your lifestyle in any way?

a. Yes b. No

If yes, how will you describe the influence?

___________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
_______________________________________________________

14. Have you ever had any negative/bad experience from these networking
sites?
a. Yes b. No

If yes, would you please describe the same?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________

15. Any other insights you would like to provide?

____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
____________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________