Perception and Use of Social Networking Sites by the Students of Calicut University

The purpose of this study was to investigate the perception and use of social networking sites by the students of Calicut University, Kerala. Structured questionnaires were used to collect data from a representative sample of 150 students. The study found that a majority of the students were aware of social networking sites and use these sites for friendly communication. Orkut was the most popular and used social networking site than Facebook and MySpace. A number of students visited social networking sites twice a week and always send scraps and meet new friends. Though the students indicated that lack of security and privacy are the main concerns of social networking sites, a majority of them used their real names and photoes in their profiles.