1

Table of ContentsIntroduction, Background 2-3

Hypothesis 3

Data Presentation and Analysis 4-14

Secondary Research 15-19

Summary of Findings, Limitations, Conclusion 20

References 21

2

Introduction

Once upon a time, people used to write letters or only cherishing memories of their

dear ones; while letters used to take a pack of weeks to reach from one place to another, but now

days have changed so much that memories take place only in devices and machines and websites

created by human. Technologies of connecting people is now advanced in such a way that

everyone can connect with multiple people at the same time; and the miraculous thing that

changed our lives drastically is social networking sites like, MySpace, Facebook, Cyworld. My

topic is about the social networking sites and if it is making today’s youth vulnerable or not.

My research focus will be upon thinking of people especially youth feeling unsafe while using

the social networking sites. I have faced some difficulties and feel unsafe while using those sites

and now just interested to find out what other thinks about this.

Background

The aspects of my research are mainly the primary research and the secondary research. Primary

research mainly is the randomly selected sample survey of young people aging 18-28 year with

some relevant questions about their experience and thinking towards social networking sites.

After accumulating the sample survey result, the secondary result included web journals, quotes

of specific important people and search engines about what other surveys, journals say about this

topic and if the result is reflecting or conflicting those sources. After that I could have reached a

decision.

In my research I have tried to investigate the impact of social networking sites on youth. My

research contains the following question-

1. What is social networking?

2. People of which age group are used to using social networking sites more than any other age

groups people think?

3. Is it preferable to use the social networking sites as the medium of being connected with

people?

3

4. Are social networking sites really growing social networks or it is just a means of sharing

private information for being social?

5. Are people there really trustworthy enough to share personal information?

6. If there is any bad experience about violence of privacy; what is that?

7. Is it free and safe always socially networking with the people around us virtually?- If yes

then why?

These questions were meant to find out what young people think about the sites and their usage.

They use it excessively or not and if it has brought any bad experience for them. How much they

trust those people to whom they are used to get connected. All these questions actually pulled me

to the answer of my research topic- if social networking sites make youth vulnerable or not.

Hypothesis

Social networking means getting connected with people very often we want to do it. In my

opinion, it can be both physical and virtual as well; but now-a-days, people are really fond of

getting connected by the social networking sites which is really easy to do, time saving and takes

the most little effort to do it. Youth people are getting lazy by it and more and more getting

involved in it. I think, mostly the teenagers and the young people (18-30) likely to use social

networking sites; but now this medium has become very popular among all ages of people. Now

if we want to be social then we have to share our photos, information and phone number as well.

As far as I know it does not happen in face to face socialization. People often face violence of

privacy, uncertainty of being secured virtually. I am hopeful about that, by my research, people

will get to know about how information disclosing, location disclosing, last done histories make

people (especially youth) unsafe, what are their feelings towards happening this etc.

4

Research Methodology

For my primary research, I have conducted a survey of representative sampling of the youth

people in Dhaka and have interviewed people who use social networking sites and felt their

privacy has been disrupted or had bad experience about anything related to social networking

sites. To the end I have designed a questionnaire with different types of questions so as to get a

range of useful data which will help me to answer my research questions.

For my secondary research, I have used resources of the Internet browsing and specific articles,

journals relating the topic, quotes of important people etc.

Organization

My research paper has be divided into several sections, the most important of which are the-

Introduction, background, data presentation and analysis, and summary of findings. Within the

sections my organization will be based on my research questions.

Data Presentation and Analysis

My primary research contains a public survey on young aging people (18-30). I have done it in

various places respectively to get a mixed random sample of selected specific people. I have

done this survey on 50 randomly selected people and those people have given different answers

individually. After that the work was about accumulating all their opinions on the questionnaire

that had been made for them. The following questions were on the questionnaire those they have

answered-

5

Questionnaire:

1. Do you use social networking sites to get connected with people?

i. Yes, always

ii. Yes, very often

iii. Yes, I think it is easier to interact with people through social networking sites

iv. No, I just use it for my time pass

v. No, I do not do that.

2. People of which age group are used to using social networking sites more than any other

age groups you think?

i. Teen (<18)

ii. Young adults (18-28)

iii. Middle aged (29-39)

iv. Seniors (>39).

3. How many people do you know by the social networking sites you use?

i. Less than 10%

ii. 10% - 40%

iii. About 50%

iv. 50% - 70%

v. More than 70%.

4. How many people have you met personally whom you know through the social

networking sites?

i. Every one of them

ii. Some of them

iii. About half of them

iv. Very few of them

v. None of them.

5. Are those people trustworthy enough to you to share personal information?

i. Yes, I trust them completely

ii. Yes, but I have not shared anything personal

iii. I maintain strict privacy on my personal information

iv. No, I do not trust them completely

6

v. Others.

6. According to you, is it free and safe always networking with the people around us

virtually?

i. Yes, I feel safe completely

ii. Yes because nobody can harm me in anyway

iii. No, not always actually

iv. No, I never feel safe

v. Others.

7. The current settings of social networking sites are slightly violence of privacy−¿

i. Strongly agree

ii. Agree

iii. Disagree

iv. Strongly disagree.

v. Others.

8. Do you allow each and everyone to access your account/private information?

i. Yes, I feel there is nothing to hide

ii. Not always

iii. In special cases

iv. Only when in need

v. Never ever.

9. Have you ever had any bad experience using social networking sites?

i. Yes

ii. No.

10. If the previous question answer is yes then what was that (one sentence)? (you can

answer indirectly- just what happened)

Answer:

11. Social networking sites really growing social networks or it is just a means of sharing

private information among people? - select the most appropriate one you think from

below.

7

i. Yes, it is growing social network

ii. It is doing both I guess

iii. It is just a means of sharing information

iv. It is harming us more than making social

v. Others.

Those were the questions on my research questionnaire.

After accumulating their answers for those specific questions, an appendix has been made on the

survey answers and it is given below-

AppendixOptions Question No.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 111 19 11 11 8 7 9 6 0 10 - 232 13 37 9 9 15 5 22 9 40 - 203 11 1 6 6 21 32 6 11 - - 34 6 1 15 11 7 3 0 13 - - 45 1 - 9 16 0 1 16 17 - - 0Total 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 50 - 50Options Percentages (%)1 38 22 22 16 14 18 12 0 20 - 462 26 74 18 18 30 10 44 18 80 - 403 22 2 12 12 42 64 12 22 - - 64 12 2 30 22 14 6 0 26 - - 85 2 - 18 32 0 2 32 34 - - 0Total 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 - 100

Data Analysis

Q1: How frequently people use social networking sites and about their opinion while using it.

Here a column chart is given below to understand the percentages of different answers-

8

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40Column Chart

Percentage

Options

Per

cent

age

Here, we can see that 38% people of the sample survey always use social networking sites in

every way; and after that the number is constantly decreasing. 26% of people very often, 22%

people use because it is easier to networking through those sites. 12% use just for time pass and

only 2% of them never use those sites. The sample survey is showing how much young people

are dependent on those sites for social networking.

Q2: People of which age group are used to using social networking sites more than any other

age groups they think?

9

22%

74%

2%2%

Doughnut Chart

Teen

Young adults

Middle aged

Seniors

We can see above from the doughnut chart that about 74% are young adults who use social

networking sites the most. There are 22% of teenagers who use those sites and only 2% of

middle aged and senior people use those sites as the survey results.

Q3: How many people they do know by using those social networking sites?

A bar chart is given below to understand the amount of percentages they hold.

<10%

(10-49)%

50%

(50-70)%

Other

0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Bar Chart

Percentage

10

From the above bar chart we can see the results are very fluctuating in different cases. 30% of

people who know about (50-70)% people by using social networking sites. That means young

people now days are used to talk or network a lot on their never seen faces found from the social

networking sites. Only 22% of people know less than 10% of their site mates. Rest (10-49)% and

50% site mates are known by those sites to the 18% and 12% people respectively.

Q4: How many of people they have met personally whom they know through the social

networking sites?

Answer: As given in the appendix, about 16% of people met every one of those people to whom

they regularly get connected by the social networking sites. About 22% of people met none of

their site mates. Rest of the 52% of people met some of their site mates as the sample data. So

the 74% of people are facing risk of getting fraud at different levels.

Q5: Are those people trustworthy enough to share personal information (photos, address,

phone numbers etc.)?

A well-designed pie chart is given below to understand the amount of percentages-

14%

30%

42%

14%

Pie Chart

Trustworthy enough

shared nothing personal

maintain strict privacy

not trustworthy enough

11

Here from the pie chart we can see that, maximum number of percentage of people hold strict

privacy on their networking site accounts, 30% of them share nothing personal in their accounts

to anyone, 14% believe to trust all and 14% believe to trust none of those sites. So, it is obvious

to say that the maximum number of surveyed people do not feel their site mates trustworthy

enough.

Q6: Is it free and safe always for them networking with the people around virtually?

Here is a column chart given below to explain the answers of the survey have been found. From

the column chart it seems that 64% of people answered that they do not feel safe always while

using the social networking sites, 6% of people never feel safe, 10% do not take any risk. Only

18% of people feel safe completely while using those sites. So, people really feel unsafe.

Safe com-

pletely

Safe because nobody can

harm

Not always Never feel safe

Others0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

Column Chart

Percentage

Q7: If the current settings of social networking sites are slightly violence of privacy to people-

A pie chart can give a better understanding to the found results of this question-

12

12%

44%12%

32%

Pie Chart

Strongly agree

Agree

Disagree

Strongly disagree

Others

From the pie chart above, 44% of people are agreeing that the current settings of social

networking sites are slightly violence of privacy, 12% strongly agree on that statement and, 12%

of people are disagreeing. 32% of people are saying other things about this statement. The pie

chart gives a very obvious result of youth opinion about this statement that, current settings of

those sites are slightly violence of privacy.

Q8: Do people allow anyone to access their account/private information?

Answer: Here, 34% of people never ever let access their account by anyone else, 26% let it do

only when in need, 22% in special cases and, 18% of people sometimes let others do that. This is

actually balanced among people if they are letting it or not.

13

Q9: Is there any bad experience while using social networking sites?

Here is a pie chart to represent the answers-

20%

80%

Pie Chart

Yes

No

Here, 80% of people answered ‘no’ they have been asked if they have gone through any bad

experience related to the social networking sites while 20% of people said ‘yes’ to this question.

Those people have also answered the question actually what happened and most of the cases

were account hacking, harassing, defaming and privacy related.

Q11: If the Social networking sites really growing social networks or it is just a means of

sharing private information among people-

Here is a bar chart given below-

14

Growing social network

Doing both

Just sharing private information

Harming more

Others

0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Bar Chart

Percentage

Here, total 14% of people said social networking sites are harming us and just doing nothing but

sharing our information to people, 20% of people are in support of doing both and, rest 46% of

people answered that it is growing social network. Though these sites have a big threat still

people want it to be a part of their life now.

These were the result and graphical presentations of the primary data results. This was a random

sample of 50 young people.

15

Secondary Research

1. Ybarra, M.L., Mitchell, K.J.(2008).How Risky Are Social Networking Sites? A

Comparison of Places Online Where Youth Sexual Solicitation and Harassment Occurs, Vol-

121, pp. e350 -e357.

Objective: Recently, public attention has focused on the possibility that social networking sites

such as MySpace and Facebook are being widely used to sexually solicit underage youth,

consequently increasing their vulnerability to sexual victimization. Beyond anecdotal accounts,

however, whether victimization is more commonly reported in social networking sites is

unknown.

Participants and Methods: The Growing up With Media Survey is a national cross-sectional

online survey of 1588 youth. Participants were 10- to 15-year-old youth who have used the

Internet at least once in the last 6 months. The main outcome measures were unwanted sexual

solicitation on the Internet, defined as unwanted requests to talk about sex, provide personal

sexual information, and do something sexual, and Internet harassment, defined as rude or mean

comments, or spreading of rumors.

Results: Fifteen percent of all of the youth reported an unwanted sexual solicitation online in the

last year; 4% reported an incident on a social networking site specifically. Thirty-three percent

reported an online harassment in the last year; 9% reported an incident on a social networking

site specifically. Among targeted youth, solicitations were more commonly reported via instant

messaging (43%) and in chat rooms (32%), and harassment was more commonly reported in

instant messaging (55%) than through social networking sites (27% and 28%, respectively).

Conclusion: Broad claims of victimization risk, at least defined as unwanted sexual solicitation

or harassment, associated with social networking sites do not seem justified. Prevention efforts

may have a greater impact if they focus on the psychosocial problems of youth instead of a

specific Internet application, including funding for online youth outreach programs, school anti-

bullying programs, and online mental health services.

16

2. Livingstone, Sonia and Brake, David R. (2010) On the rapid rise of social networking

sites: new findings and policy implications. Children & society, 24 (1). pp. 75-83.

Social networking sites have been rapidly adopted by children and, especially, teenagers and

young people worldwide, enabling new opportunities for the presentation of the self, learning,

construction of a wide circle of relationships, and the management of privacy and intimacy. On

the other hand, there are also concerns that social networking increases the likelihood of new

risks to the self, these centering on loss of privacy, bullying, harmful contacts and more. This

article reviews recent findings regarding children and teenagers’ social networking practices in

order to identify implications for future research and public policy. These focus on the

interdependencies between opportunities and risks, the need for digital or media literacy

education, the importance of building safety considerations into the design and management of

social networking sites, the imperative for greater attention to ‘at risk’ children in particular, and

the importance of a children’s rights framework in developing evidence-based policy in this area.

New opportunities tend to be associated with new risks (Livingstone and Helsper, in press). The

UK’s Home Office (2008) identifies a series of risks to children’s safety associated with social

networking - bullying, harassment, and exposure to harmful content, theft of personal

information, sexual grooming, violent behavior, encouragement to self-harm and racist attacks.

Anxious headlines – ‘Knife a Pal on Facebook’ (Clench, 2008), ‘Facebook spells end of lasting

friendships, says expert’ (Smith, 2008), ‘MySpace Invaders: Evil Lurks on Teen Sites’ (Webster

& Edwards, 2007) - certainly overstate the problem, but there are grounds for genuine concern.

Such research findings as exist link social networking with a range of content, contact and

conduct risks to children and young people, including some perpetrated by children themselves.

The UK Children Go Online survey of 9-19 year olds found that, among those who used the

internet at least weekly, 57% had seen online pornography, 31% had seen violent and 11% had

seen racist content. Further, 31% had received sexual comments online and 28% had been sent

unsolicited sexual material. A third had received bullying comments online and 8% had gone to a

meeting with someone first met online (Livingstone & Bober, 2005). Two adolescent practices

are likely to exacerbate online risk – the disclosure of personal information and the experimental

nature of peer communication. Yet it seems teenagers are fairly though not entirely careful when

17

communicating online. A content analysis of a random sample of 2423 public MySpace profiles

produced by under 18s found that many provided personal photos (57%), but only a few

discussed alcohol consumption (18%), showed images of friends in swimsuit/underwear (16%),

provided real names (9%), discussed smoking (8%), showed themselves in swimsuit/underwear

(5%) or discussed marijuana use (2%) (Hinduja & Patchin, 2008). A USA survey found that

while boys and younger teens are more likely to post false information, older teenagers

(especially girls) are more likely to reveal detailed personal information: overall, 49% included

their school and 29% their email address (Lenhart & Madden, 2007). An Irish survey of 10-20

year olds found that while 49% gave out their date of birth, only 12% gave their mobile phone

number and 8% their home address (Anchor, 2007). Since social networking sites are designed

for teenagers to provide at least their name, birth date and photograph, such personal disclosures

are unsurprising. There is growing evidence that personal disclosure facilitates communication

risks. While mild peer-to-peer problems may include teenagers teasing each other by posting

‘embarrassing’ pictures, concerns are growing about ‘cyber-bullying’ (Patchin & Hinduja, 2006):

a 2006 survey found that, although 69% pupils were bullied in past year, only 7% said they had

received unpleasant or bullying emails/IM/text messages (Bullying UK, 2006), although another

survey found 20% had been cyber-bullied (NCH/Tesco, 2006). Higher levels of cyber-bullying

are reported in the USA: 72% of 12-17 year olds, an online survey found, had been bullied

online in the previous year, and 85% had also been bullied in school. Although from a self-

selected sample, these figures show how online and offline bullying are linked (Juvonen &

Gross, 2008): Hinduja and Patchin (2009) found that 82%of those bullied online knew their

perpetrator and 42% who reported being cyber-bullied were also bullied at school.

Much research tends not to distinguish modes of communication - email, text, chat room, instant

messaging or social networking. While 33% of 10-15 year olds contacted in the USA reported

being harassed online in 2007, they were more likely to be harassed through instant messaging or

chat rooms than via social networking sites (Ybarra & Mitchell, 2008). Ybarra etal (2007) argue

that teenagers who communicate in multiple ways online are most at risk of online victimization,

as are those who seek out opportunities to talk about sex with unknown people and who have

unknown people in their buddy lists (see also Internet Safety Technical Task Force, 2009).

Having found that lower self-esteem and well-being is more common among teenagers who

particularly seek opportunities to talk to strangers online, Valkenburg and Peter (2007a) argue

18

that chat rooms favour such interaction with strangers more than instant messaging. For social

networking, a key factor might be whether a teenager’s profile is set to public or private and

whether he or she is careful or casual in accepting unknown contacts as friends. However,

research has yet carefully to disentangle the workings of these different factors – forms of online

communication, conditions of use, characteristics of the young users, and possible adverse

consequences.

3. Livingstone, Sonia, Ólafsson, Kjartan and Staksrud, Elisabeth (2013) Risky social

networking practices among ‘under-age’ users: lessons for evidence-based policy. Journal for

computer-mediated communication, 18 (3). pp. 303-320.

European self-regulation to ensure children's safety on social networking sites requires that

providers ensure children are old enough to use the sites, aware of safety messages, empowered

by privacy settings, discouraged from disclosing personal information, and supported by easy to

use reporting mechanisms. This article assesses the regulatory framework with findings from a

survey of over 25000 9- to 16-year-olds from 25 European countries. These reveal many

underage children users, and many who lack the digital skills to use social networking sites

safely. Despite concerns that children defy parental mediation, many comply with parental rules

regarding social networking. The implications of the findings are related to policy decisions on

lower age limits and self-regulation of social networking sites.

4. Livingstone, Sonia (2008) Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation:

teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression. New media

& society, 10 (3). pp. 393-411.

The explosion in social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Bebo and Friendster is

widely regarded as an exciting opportunity, especially for youth, yet the public response tends to

be one of puzzled dismay regarding a generation that, supposedly, has many friends but little

sense of privacy and a narcissistic fascination with self-display. This article explores teenagers'

practices of social networking in order to uncover the subtle connections between online

19

opportunity and risk. While younger teenagers relish the opportunities to recreate continuously a

highly-decorated, stylistically-elaborate identity, older teenagers favor a plain aesthetic that

foregrounds their links to others, thus expressing a notion of identity lived through authentic

relationships. The article further contrasts teenagers' graded conception of `friends' with the

binary classification of social networking sites, this being one of several means by which online

privacy is shaped and undermined by the affordances of these sites.

5. Staksrud, Elisabeth, Ólafsson, Kjartan and Livingstone, Sonia (2013) Does the use of

social networking sites increase children’s risk of harm? Computers in human behavior, 29

(1). pp. 40-50.

Although research findings have been equivocal as to whether the use of social networking sites

(SNSs) increases experiences of online risk among children, the affordances of SNS lend support

to this possibility, attracting much policy and public concern. The present article examines

whether the use of such services increases the risks that children and young people encounter by

analyzing data from a random stratified sample of approximately 1000 internet-using children

aged 9-16 years in each of 25 European countries. Four hypotheses were formulated and tested.

The first hypothesis, namely that children who use social networking sites will encounter more

risks online than those who do not, is supported by the data. The second hypothesis stated that

SNS users with more digital competence will encounter more online risk than those with less

competence; this was also supported, despite being counter to common assumptions. Thirdly, we

hypothesized that SNS users with more risky SNS practices (e.g. a public profile, displaying

identifying information, with a very large number of contacts) will encounter more online risk

than those with fewer risky practices: this too was supported by the data; thus what matters for

risk is how SNS are used, a useful point for awareness-raising initiatives. The fourth hypothesis

stated that SNS users with more digital competence in using the internet will experience less

harm associated with online risk. The data did not support this hypothesis, since digital

competence did not reduce the probability of children saying that they have been bothered or

upset by something on the internet. Finally, the study found that, although this had not been

predicted, whether or not risks are experienced as harmful depends on the specific relation

between risks and platforms (website, instant messaging, gaming or social networking). We call

20

on future research to explore how particular affordances sustain particular communicative

conditions and, in turn, are responded to differently by children. The research and policy

implications of the findings are discussed.

Summary of Findings

All the question answers of my primary research, the resources of secondary research lead

towards the research questions and my desired findings. Primary research questionnaire

represented maximum number of people answering about feeling unsafe while using the social

networking sites. the secondary research article and journal references also supported my topic of

point that- Social networking sites make youths vulnerable.

Limitations

Well, carrying out my whole research project was not at all an easy task for me; it was

really difficult for me to cite the secondary sources in APA format. I carried out a survey on 50

NSU students which is not a satisfactory number of people to conclude the result of my survey

with great validity. If I had more time my sample size would have been quite larger, and I would

have carried out a survey outside North South University, on the general young people currently

studying in other universities. I had a wish of taking personal interviews relating to this research

paper work, but due to insufficiency of time I could not do it. I hope that my limitations will be

forgivable.

Conclusion

After this research, I really hope that it will be helpful to the youth to know how the excessive

use of social networking sites can make them unsafe. Moreover I also want to conclude that

social networking sites are really very helpful for today’s world; but not excessively.

21

References

1. Ybarra, M.L., Mitchell, K.J.(2008).How Risky Are Social Networking Sites? A

Comparison of Places Online Where Youth Sexual Solicitation and Harassment Occurs, Vol-

121, pp. e350 -e357.

2. Livingstone, Sonia and Brake, David R. (2010) On the rapid rise of social networking

sites: new findings and policy implications. Children & society, 24 (1). pp. 75-83.

3. Livingstone, Sonia, Ólafsson, Kjartan and Staksrud, Elisabeth (2013) Risky social

networking practices among ‘under-age’ users: lessons for evidence-based policy. Journal for

computer-mediated communication, 18 (3). pp. 303-320.

4. Livingstone, Sonia (2008) Taking risky opportunities in youthful content creation:

teenagers' use of social networking sites for intimacy, privacy and self-expression. New media

& society, 10 (3). pp. 393-411.

5. Staksrud, Elisabeth, Ólafsson, Kjartan and Livingstone, Sonia (2013) Does the use of

social networking sites increase children’s risk of harm? Computers in human behavior, 29

(1). pp. 40-50.