The Social Networking

Report On Social Networking Sites.

Prepared By:

Syed Naeem Hussain Shah

M. Usman Rasheed

Umer Ali Asghar

 Abstract

Social Networking Sites are experiencing a rapid growth; there seems to be no limit to their size. Many
Social Networking Sites boast with millions of members using their networks on regular basis to

communicate, share, create, and collaborate with others. Popular examples of these Social Networking Sites are

Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Although most of these sites lack decent business models, they are valued at

millions of pounds. Google paid 15 billion dollar for YouTube when it wasn’t even earning a single penny.
The reason successful Social Networking Sites have become so valuable is due to the amount of people
that are using it. This report aims to find out whether Social Networking Sites are directing people towards
positive or negative directions. . Research revealed that people are very much concerned about their
relationships and privacy concerns associated with Online Networking Sites.

The contemporary research furthermore harvested information from a range of sources to create
understanding of key issues allowing readers to familiarize.
 Acknowledgements

Miss Shehla Zaman

We would like to express our sincere appreciation to our teacher Miss. Shehla Zaman who guided us
throughout the semester. We could not have completed the research without her guidance and ongoing
support. Due to Miss Shehla’s critical yet motivating feedback we managed to complete this project.
She showed her keen interest in research & assisted us. We are thankful to her for unconditional
support.

The Respondents
We would like to thank all the people that took the time to respond to the
questionnaire and assisted in gathering the primary data
 Power Of Social Networking

Citation

1. Ellison, Nicole, Steinfield, Charles, and Lampe, Cliff. (2006). The Benefits of Facebook 'Friends:' Social Capital and
College Students' Use of Online Social Network Sites

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue4/ellison.html

2. Debatin, Bernhard, Lovejoy, Jennette P., Horn, Ann-Kathrin, and Hughes, Brittany N.. (2009). Facebook and Online
Privacy: Attitudes, Behaviors, and Unintended Consequences.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1083-6101.2009.01494.x/full

3. Charnigo, Laurie, and Barnett-Ellis, Paula. (2007, March). Checking Out Facebook.com: The Impact of a Digital Trend
on Academic Libraries

http://www.acrl.org/ala/mgrps/divs/lita/litapublications/ital/262007/2601mar/charnigo.pdf

4. Cassell, J., and Cramer, M.. (2007). High Tech or High Risk: Moral Panics about Girls Online

http://www.soc.northwestern.edu/justine/publications/Cassell_Cramer_MoralPanic.pdf

5. Buffardi, L. E., and Campbell, W. K.. (2008). Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites

http://iscience.deusto.es/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/narcissism-facebook-pspb.pdf

6. boyd, danah, and Ellison, Nicole. (2007). Social Network Sites: Definition, History, and Scholarship

http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol13/issue1/boyd.ellison.html

7. boyd, danah. (2007). Social Network Sites: Public, Private, or What?

http://www.danah.org/papers/KnowledgeTree.pdf\

8. boyd, danah. (2008). Why Youth (Heart) Social Network Sites: The Role of Networked Publics in Teenage Social Life

http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf

9. Bernd Ploderer, Steve Howard, and Peter Thomas. (in press). Collaboration on Social Network Sites: Amateurs,
Professionals and Celebrities

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10606-010-9112-0

10. Ajith Sundaram. (2010). Evaluation of Social networking sites for business application

http://www.danah.org/researchBibs/sns.php
 Literature Review

Social network sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin have attracted millions of users who have
integrated these sites into their daily practices. There are hundreds of SNSs, with various technological
affordances, supporting a wide range of interests and practices. While their key objective is same. 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. Much of the early research on online communities assumed that individuals using these
systems would be connecting with others outside their pre-existing social group or location, liberating them to
form communities around shared interests, as opposed to shared geography (Wellman, Salaff, Dimitrova, Garton,
Gulia, & Haythornthwaite, 1996).

Characteristics of Social Networking Sites

Gerbranda (2007) concluded that although differences exist between Social Networking Sites, they are all
considered to be Social Networking Sites. However he continues with stating that when these websites are
evaluated on their purpose and technology; it is possible to make three categories

boyd (2004) hypothesize that SNSs could greatly increase the weak ties one could form and maintain, because the
technology is well-suited to maintaining such ties cheaply and easily.
 Social Networking Sites

Currently there are hundreds of active Social Networking Sites. They each serve a different market as stated by
Boyd and Ellison in 2008. Some of the key Social Networking Sites are as follows

Facebook

Facebook is a Social Networking Site where users can join networks organized by city, workplace, school, and
region to connect and interact with other people. People can also add friends and send them messages, and
update their personal profiles to notify friends about themselves. Facebook is the largest Social Networking Site,
currently attracting most of the traffic among its competitors. Just recently Facebook hit a milestone having more
than 500 million members. Facebook offers all kinds of services to its members, although the “basic” features are
provided by the host organisation, the biggest increase in the usability and features come from third-party
developers. Currently Facebook hosts more than 30.000 applications (Ustinova 2008). The growth of Facebook is
immense and there are currently no sign that this will stop very soon.

Twitter

Twitter is one of the latest popular Social Networking Site. Twitter is a free micro-blogging service that allows its
users to send and read other users update which are also known as ‘tweets’; which are only 140 characters in
length. Twitter stands out from all other large Social Networking Sites due to its simplicity. It does not offer any
advanced sharing tools, i.e. photo or video sharing. However by using Web 2.0 tools, Twitter allows users to share
their tweets on any other website; this has contributed enormously to the success of Twitter. Its current user
count is not disclosed by Twitter, however it is estimated that twitter attracted 10 million visitors in February alone
(Radwanick 2009). The most talked about things on twitter are called trends, most popular trends are President
Obama, The Royal Wedding, Osama Bin Laden. 7/7 London Attacks, Mumbai Attacks.

Linkedin

“LinkedIn is an interconnected network of experienced professionals from around the world, representing 170
industries and 200 countries. You can find, be introduced to, and collaborate with qualified professionals that you
need to work with to accomplish your goals” (Linkedin 2009). The Networks currently has nearly 40 million
members around the world. It is a professional community, where according to Linkedin a new member is
received roughly every second.
 Hypothesis Development

Based on the literature review following are the hypothesis we derived for our study

H1: Most of the people use Social Networking sites just to get in touch with their old school/college mates.

As we have mentioned above that basic purpose of all Network sites is to bring people closer to each other and to
network with strangers. We have tried to find that to what extent its true that majority uses SNSs to stay in touch
with old colleagues and college fellows.

H2: Despite the popularity of SNSs many users are unaware of privacy concerns.

With the evolution of social media one thing which is crucial is the privacy of users and their personal information.

H3: User join Social networking sites for the development of new relationships.
 Theoretical Framework

Following is the theoretical framework for our study, the independent variables are internet privacy concern, trust
in the social networking site, and trust in other members of social networking sites. How do they relate to the
outcomes being measured with respect to the use of social networking sites, specifically development of new
relationships?

Trust in social
networking
sites
Internet
Trust in other
privacy members
concerns

Development
of New
Relationships
 Questionnaire
Survey questions were created to capture perceptions of trust, internet privacy concern, information sharing,
general use of the site, and the development of new relationships. The survey asked subjects to indicate what
personal information they include in their profile. Options included photograph, real name, hometown, e-mail
address, cell phone number, relationship status (i.e. in a relationship or single), sexual orientation, and instant
messenger screen name.