Chapter-I

INTRODUCTION
IMPORTANCE OF A SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE:
Social network sites are web-based services allowing individuals to construct a semi-public or
public profile in a bounded system as well as to articulate a list of others so as to share
connections, views and thoughts. However the type, classification and nature of these
connections may differ from site to site. Uniqueness of social networking sites not only allows
individuals to meet strangers but enables users to discuss and make visible their social networks.
This results into connections between individuals which otherwise is not possible through any
other media already existing. Maximum of the time social networking sites are used to
communicate with people who are already their friends or acquaintances in the social network
sharing same mindset or same interests and views.
TOP 6 SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES IN THE WORLD
Estimated unique monthly users
1 Face book 55,0000000
2 Twitter 95800000
3 MySpace 80500000
4 LinkedIn 50000000
5 Tagged 30000000
6 Classmates 29000000
Social networking sites are not only popular for providing a platform for chatting, sharing scraps,
videos, pictures etc. but also for discussing social issues. However, certain issues yet require
study and research like impact of SNS on youth’s minds and loss of privacy as earlier people
believed in keeping their data private but now they enjoy going public and showing wall posts,
status updates, tweets and infact every thrill of their lives. In this way, we are ourselves
breaching our privacy and personal space at the compromise of publicizing intimate details so as
to attract hundreds of online readers and even strangers. There is a pool of social problems which
requires attention of majority so that we can fight against them as a united country and make the
society more peaceful. Social awareness brings more matureness, unity and thoughtfulness when
it comes to making important decisions for them or for society. When these social networking
sites started, youths got immediately attracted towards them as they found it very convenient to
expand their social circle, chat with other fellow teenagers, share their personal photos and see
others data too.
CONNOTATION OF BLOGS:
Blog writing is a latest trend which serves as an online journal linking to varying news stories
and sites. It allows individual or group of users to record their opinions and information. Now
every hit personality or celebrity is maintain their blog logs and updating in a regular basis so as
to enhance their popularity rate and get open views and suggestions from mass. Maintaining
blogs also enables strengthening community ties and advancing key issues. People now don’t
rely much on traditional means of interaction instead they want to penetrate internet, social
networking and derive the best output.
INTEGRATING COMMUNITIES:
Social networking sites helps in integrating all the parts of the country including subcultures and
minority groups who otherwise never get the physical means and space to practice their views
and beliefs. Through social networking sites individuals can communicate with others
irrespective of meeting face to face or present at a specified time. As these individuals are not
aware of things they can use these websites and can raise their voices and can also participate.
Impact of Social networking websites on Youth
Social media has become a part of everyone’s life that it can’t be ignored. Social media has both
positive and negative impact not only on youth but also on elders and children. Let us see some
of the positive impacts of social media
Positive impacts:
Friends:
Making friends has become easier with these social networking sites like facebook, google+ and
twitter etc. in olden days it was a bit tough to make friends unless and until one has personal
interest of going out and making friends. Later after in the decades of 70’s and 80’s mobile
phones helped in connecting and improving conversation with people. And now the exploration
of social networking sites sprang up and it has changed the whole idea of making friends once
more and forever. We can make unlimited friends worldwide and chat with them without any
time limit and even at free of cost. Now a day’s even
we can have a video chat which is also available for free of cost. This can be considered as one
of the best advantages of having social networking sites. We can connect with friends whom we
missed out in out childhood.
• Empathy:
By connecting with friends through social networking sites we share all of our good and bad
experiences with friends. This will improve the relationship between friends and thus creating
good bonding. Thus by sharing both good and bad experiences with friends, we will be able to
empathize with each other. Sharing one’s experiences with friends will also give mental
relaxation.
• Rapid communication:
Everybody is becoming so busy with their lives that they don’t even have time to communicate
with their family members. Our time is getting thinner and thinner with busy work schedule and
family commitments. Social networking sites give us a chance to communicate in a speedy and
effective manner. Writing in face book, Google+ and twitter will reach as many people as we
want just in a span of seconds and with no cost. These sites will allow us to live a life which is
unhindered with a small talk.
• Be in touch with the world:
Not only communicating with friends within the circle but we can also make friends worldwide
easily. We can build a network of friends and we can share our ideas, photos and videos through
these sites. Through this we can have updated news of friends and family members. We can
emphasize our location by using location based services like foursquare and gowalla.
• Building relationship and finding a common ground in an open society:
We can make a strong relationship with friends and relatives through these sites. This can help
foster friendship and more besides strengthen us. Because friend is the only person with whom
we can share everything related to our life. Connecting with groups will help in improving one’s
own business, thus creating profits. Professional sites like LinkedIn will have many groups based
on different criteria. Through LinkedIn people get jobs and some promote their business.
Negative impacts:
Social media, now a day’s is leaving a negative impact rather being positive. Most of the youth
spend lot of time on the internet to visit and check their single or multiple accounts. This will
affect students, youth and productivity of work because of the extreme use of technology. The
risks of using social media may also include mental health, cyber bulling, texting and revelation
to problematical and unlawful content and privacy violations.
• Cyber bulling:
Usage of social media may create a chance for emotional distress in getting frightening, irritating
and degrading communication from another teenager which is called cyber bulling. It’s been
proved that cyber bulling will build advanced levels of depression and anxiety for victims and
also resulted in youth suicide. Most of the females become victims of this cyber bulling.
• Texting:
Texting is used to harass people. Using cell phones and social networking sites for instant
messaging to threaten, and hassle relationship partners is increasing day by day. One in three
teens in relationships has been text messaged up to 30times an hour by a partner to know where
they are, what they are doing, or who they are with.
• Privacy:
Most of the teenagers are not aware of the website policies when setting their profiles and they
may not be even aware of disclosing the information to the third parties like the advertisers. Most
of the teenagers like to post their information publicly which will affect them when the hackers
or people with cruel intension may use their information for wrong purposes.
Social impact
Through email and instant messaging, online communities are created where a gift
economy and reciprocal altruism are encouraged through co-operation. 2go and other social
networking tools are increasingly the objective of scholarly research. Scholars in many fields
have begun to investigate the impact of social networking site, investigating how such site may
play into issues of identity, privacy, social, youth culture and education. Several website are
beginning to tap into the power of the social networking model for philanthropy. In 2011 HCL
technologies conducted research that showed that 50% of British workers are banned from the
use of social media during office hours.
 In this view, when one is chit-chatting, the content of the message reveal a lot about an
individual. In chatting, comments, photos, and status should speak less of an individual. Kim in
summary says;” if you are mindful of what you are doing, you can maintain a measure of privacy
on a social network”. And in reference to this, proverbs 10:19, states that
‘In the abundance of words, there does not fail to be transgression, but the one keeping his in
check is acting discreetly.’

The Concept of Social Media

Social media is that means that employs mobile and web based technology to create
highly interactive platforms via which individuals and community share, co-create, discuss and
modifies users generated content (kietzmannn,2012).
Social media is a phrase being tossed around a lot. It is a website that does not just give you
information but interact with you while giving you information. It is a group of internet based
application that allows the creation and exchange of users generated content. It is easy to confuse
social media with social news because we often refer to members of the news as the media.
Adding to it, that social news site is also social media site. Some media website includes; a
1) Social book Marking – interact by tagging website and searching through website book
marked by others (Blink list, simple).

2) Social News – interact by voting for articles and commenting on them (Digg, propello).

3) Social Networking – interact by adding friends, commenting on photo and profiles, sharing
groups for discussions (Face book, 2go, Whatsapp chat)

4) Social Photo and Video Sharing – interact by sharing photos or videos and commenting on
the user submission. (U-tube and fliki).

5) Wikis – interact by adding articles and editing existing articles. (Wikipedia, wikia).
Social media refers to the means of interaction among people in which they create, share,
exchange and comment among themselves in different networks. Andreas and Michael (2000)
are of the opinion that social media is a group of internet based application that builds on the
ideological foundation and allows the creation and exchange of users – generated content. Social
media has become one of the major channel of chatting through platforms such as 2go, BB chat,
blogger and wiki a. There has been an increase in the mobile social media which has created new
opportunity for browsing. (Retrieved December 3rd 2012).
The internet usage effect of social media, in views of Nielson, (2012) is that, internet users
continue to spend more time on the social media than any site. The total time spent on social
media across mobile devices increased by 37%, 121 billion minutes in July 2012 compared to 88
billion minutes in July 2011.
Technology includes the blogs, picture sharing, music sharing, crowd sourcing, e-mail, instant
messaging and voice over. These services could be integrated via social network aggregation
platforms.
Mobile Social Media
When social media is used in combination with mobile devices, it is called mobile social media.
Social media is a group of mobile marketing application that allows the creation and exchange of
users generated content. Due to the fact that mobile social media runs on mobile devices, it
differs from traditional social media as it incorporates new factors such as the current location of
the user, time delay between sending and receiving.
According to Kaplan 2002, social media can be divided into four types
Space – timers [location and time sensitive] – exchange of message with relevance for specific
location and time (Face book, 2go, BB chat)

Quick – time [time sensitive] – transfer of traditional social media application to mobile
services to increase immediacy (posting twitter messages, status update[2go], and updating
display picture(dp) [BBm].

Space – locators [location sensitive] – exchange message with relevance for one specific
location which are tagged to certain place (yelp, oype).

Slow – timers [neither location nor time sensitive] – transfer traditional social media
application to mobile devices (reading a wiki-pedia entry).
1.2 OBJECTIVES OF THE STUDY

1. To study the awareness level of usage of different social networking sites

Among Students.

2. To find out level of trust over the information received from social networking sites.

3. To study the type of social issues discussed over social networking sites.
1.5 Research Design and Technique

Universe : KILAKARAI , RAMNATHAPURAM

Sample : The sample was taken from public who are using social media. On total, 50
respondents were taken Randomly

Sampling techniques:
For this survey, convenient sampling strategy was used. Convenience sampling is a type
of non-probability sampling which involves the sample being drawn from that part of the
population which is close to hand. That is, a population is selected because it is readily available
and convenient.

Procedure and Tool:

In order to obtain the data a questionnaire was designed to measure the attitude of youth
towards Social networking websites. This questionnaire was carefully prepared, 21 questions
were set with two options given with each. The data was collected individually. The subject was
asked to read the questions carefully and then mark the option which appealed to them the most.
It was a exploratory study and tools used were tables and pie charts.

They were instructed that all the given information will be confidential. The results are
informed on the basis of raw data obtained.
 CHAPTER –III
LITERATURE REVIEW
Lot of literature is available now days on the social networking sites and their impact on the
youth of any nation, children, adolescence and families as during the last 5 years, usage of such
sites has increased among preadolescents and adolescents. According to a latest poll, 22% of
teenagers log in more than 10 times a day on to their favorite social media site, and more than
half percentage of adolescents log more than once a day (Steyer James, 2009). Infact research
also states that parents need to be aware of the type; content and nature of social media sites as
maximum of them are not suitable for children and adolescents. So, Pediatricians are now
playing a vital role to help families understand these sites and their usage so as to monitor for
potential problems with sexting, cyberbullying, Facebook depression, and exposure to
inappropriate content’ (Keeffe, G.S. 2012). Social media sites allow many tasks that were not
possible offline as making new friends, staying connected with friends and family, exchanging
ideas and sharing pictures. Participation in social media offers adolescents deeper benefits that
extend into their view of community, self, and the world. (Boyd, D. 2007) Today many parents
are IT literate and use technology suitably well, comfortably and feel capable with the online
sites that their children and adolescents are using. But some parents find it problematic to relate
to their techno-savvy youngsters online. Such parents gradually lack an idea and connectivity
with these new forms of socialization that play a vital role in their kid's lives.(Palfrey J & Gasser
U, 2010). Out of 75% of teenagers owning cell phones, 25% use them for social media, 24% use
them for instant messaging and 54% use them for texting (Hinduja S. & Patchin J., 2007).
Youths and adolescents are at some risk as they navigate and experiment with social media
because of their limited capacity for self-regulation and susceptibility to peer pressure. There are
frequent online expressions of offline behaviors, as clique-forming, bullying, and sexual
experimentation according to a recent research (Lenheart A., 2009). James Bennett in 2010
examined the link between organizational culture and social networking so as to predict whether
social networking tools are capable of reshaping and revitalizing and the brand and culture of an
organization, which in turn can lead to enhanced levels of employee productivity and
satisfaction. As the adoption of these SNS such as Facebook is increasing by diverse populations,
the benefits provided by them have made us better off as a society and as individuals, and that, as
they continue to be, we will see an increase in their utility. Positive outcomes from these
technologies as jobs found through LinkedIn or political activities organized via Facebook is
well-known, but now a growing corpus of research on social networks sites supports this view
too.(Sumiti Sehgal, 2010). Social networking sites have both negative and positive impact on the
education of the youth. (S. Kuppuswammy, 2010).

Conclusion
After gathering up all the survey results, it was concluded that student of University of Central
Punjab have accounts on different Social networking websites and use it on regular basis.
It was found that these social networking sites are acting as great medium for view mobilization. People are
feeling free in sharing their thoughts on any issue and even youth is raising their voice against social acts like
violation of Human Rights, corruption, Pornography, child labor etc. These social networking sites are proving
themselves a boon at least in bringing thoughts of people on these social issues. It is also being generated
from the information so obtained that people are getting more aware about the social issues mainly from
Face book. But instead of getting this knowledge the people generally don’t discuss them and if they do, they
just sign off the sites after discussion and the issue just remains focused on web only.
It was found that women’s are spending less time on these sites yet they are sensitive towards these social
issues. Most of them think that youth can play a positive role in changing our society which is represent in
most of the responses to different queries.
Suggestions & recommendations:
The below recommendations can be helpful for better use of Social Media:
• For parents and caretakers: Parents and the caretakers have to alert themselves regarding social
media and the means which their teens may use. And they should be aware of the risks to understand
and navigate technology. Family discussions are also one of the recommendations which will help
teenagers in avoiding using internet. Parents should be concerned about the online protection and
sharing of individual information and photos of their teens, as less sharing of personal information will
prevent the risk. Most of the information should be kept private so as to avoid spammers.
• For community:
Better resources should be owed to schools, libraries and community organizations, to help them in
taking on risk management strategies and to offer education about online security matter. Resources
are required for social services and mental health professionals, who job with minors and their families
in extending their skill, to online spaces and also work with other members of the society, for identifying
at-risk youth and interfere prior to risky performance results in unenthusiastic endings.
• Technological solutions:
Internet providers like Google and Yahoo, and social networking sites, like Face book and YouTube, must
continue in working with parents and policymakers for creating alertness and chances for privacy
defense of youth and to expand technologies which will help teenagers in getting secured.
• Health providers:
Medicinal and psychological health suppliers should comprise regular broadcasting to evaluate the risk
for depression which considers teenagers social media use. For instance, assessing the time spent in
using media as well as online activities or inquisitive about online contacts .Tools must be developed for
helping providers engage in these conversations.
• Research Evaluation:
continuous research is required on the achievement of social media based involvements, especially
those focusing on metropolitan and