Exposure and Use of Social Networking Sites Among University Students.
INTRODUCTION
A social networking site is a platform use in building social networks or social relations among people who, for example, share interests, activities, backgrounds or real-life connections. It is a service which consists of a representation of each user (often a profile), his social links, and a variety of additional services.
Social networking is also a web-based services that allow individuals to create a public profile, to create a list of users with whom to share connection, and view and cross the connections within the system.
It allows users to share ideas, pictures, posts, activities, events, and interests with people in respective of their geographical location.
BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
The first recognizable social network site was launched in 1997. This site is known as SixDegrees.com which allowed users to create profiles and list their Friends. Each of these features existed in some form before SixDegrees. Profiles existed on most major dating sites and many community sites.
Later American Instant Message (AIM) was launched followed by Classmates.com which 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.,2007). While people were already flocking to the Internet, most did not have extended networks of friends who were online.
From 1997 to 2001, a number of community tools began supporting various combinations of profiles and publicly articulated Friends. Later in 2004,Mark Zuckerburg, then a Harvard undergraduate, created Facebook which is one of the popular social networking site today.
STATEMENT OF RESEARCH PROBLEM
This research aims to study the exposure and use of social networking sites among university students. Over the years, exposure and use of social networking sites among university students have become more and more popular for this reason.
It is paramount that students exposure to social networking site and its impact on their academic performance and social lifestyle is evaluated due to their exposure to social networking site.
SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY
This study is significant since social media network usage among undergraduate is continuing to grow at a fast pace, it is important to understand the effects it has on personal communication and academic performance of undergraduate students.
Since social media networks offer a straightforward way to converse with peers and get peer feedback, it may influence a young adult’s self-esteem. Therefore it is necessary that the exposure level and the impact of this social network on undergraduate students are evaluated.
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